[ Page 4709 ]

CONTENTS

Ministerial statement: Tribute to new Governor-General

Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 4709

Mr. Howard –– 4709

Routine Proceedings

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill 29). Hon. Mr. Nielsen

Introduction and first reading –– 4710

Oral Questions

Easter Seal services for disabled children. Mr. Blencoe –– 4710

Dynatek financial obligations. Mr. Nicolson –– 4710

Bus service to Cowichan Bay and Shawnigan Lake. Mrs. Wallace –– 4711

Unfair labour practices. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4711

Cowichan estuary. Mrs. Wallace –– 4711

Province-Sun strike. Mr. Michael –– 4712

Cowichan estuary. Mrs. Wallace –– 4712

Human Rights Act. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4712

Quinsam coal project. Mr. Gabelmann –– 4712

Presenting Reports

Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills

Mr. Pelton –– 4712

Tabling Documents –– 4712

Labour Code Amendment Act (Bill 28). Second reading

Mr. Stupich –– 4712

Ms. Brown –– 4717

Mr. Macdonald –– 4721

Mr. Mitchell –– 4723

Mrs. Wallace –– 4727

Mr. Parks –– 4730

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No 2), 1984 (Bill 31). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 4731

MONDAY, MAY 14, 1984

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

Prayers.

TRIBUTE TO NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement.

An act of celebration of democratic tradition and I would say a historic pageant of great significance took place in our national capital earlier today when Her Excellency the Rt. Hon. Jeanne Sauvé was installed as our Governor-General, the personal representative of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, the Queen of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that an installation of a Governor-General is heralded at any time, but on this occasion, which is the twenty-third such occasion in our country, it is even more so, because it better reflects the growing up and increasing enlightenment in our country, as Mme. Sauvé is the first woman to assume the office since 1867. Our new viceroy is all-Canadian in every sense, and she will bring to this office her personal grace and charm plus a wealth of distinguished experience that will serve her well.

As Mme. Sauvé, her dedication to the development of the youth of our country is well documented. She founded the Youth Movements Federation in 1947 and served in 1951 as assistant to the director of the youth section of UNESCO. She has actively supported the creative arts and was one of the original members of the Institute of Political Research. Also we well appreciate as politicians that she takes up the duties of her new office with first-hand knowledge of the political process, having served in parliament as a member of the Privy Council in three portfolios: Minister of State for Science and Technology, Minister of Environment and Minister of Communications. In 1980 she became the first woman to be elected as Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons.

I would like to make the point that as Canadians we all know that our Canadian way of government is viewed, I would say, with undisguised longing, if not envy, by millions of people in various areas of the world. The duties and responsibilities of a Governor-General catalyze and complement the perpetuation of our democratic institutions and indeed our democratic way of governing.

As her Excellency takes on her new duties, which are far more arduous than most people consider them to be, we congratulate her; wish her well; we wish her health and bonne chance and happily anticipate all of the joie de vivre that she will contribute to her task. I would like to say, I'm sure on behalf of all members of this assembly and, indeed, of every British Columbian, that when Her Excellency commences her visits across Canada, we certainly hope that she will start in the west and that her first official port of call may be our beautiful province. We look forward to seeing her, and there is no need for an RSVP.

I also don't wish to permit this moment to pass without expressing our thanks and appreciation, on behalf of all British Columbians, to the retiring Governor-General, His Excellency the Rt. Hon. Edward R. Schreyer, for his service, his easy and ready approachability to all of his fellow Canadians, so many of whom he and his chatelaine made so welcome wherever they journeyed in Canada and at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Canadians from coast to coast were sincerely impressed with the warm and thoughtful sentiments His Excellency expressed in his farewell speech, and also with his forward thinking and personal generosity in founding the non-profit Canadian Shield Foundation for biological research.

May he and his wife and family enjoy and Canada prosper from his new role as ambassador to Australia. We wish them all well.

MR. HOWARD: Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition wants to clearly associate itself with those words. Her Excellency Mme. Sauvé has had a distinguished career in the Parliament of Canada as a member, as a cabinet minister and as Speaker of the House of Commons. We are quite sure, as well, that in her role now as Governor-General she will carry on her distinguished activity, bring additional stature to the office and to Canada, and maintain and keep the tradition and honour that we all associate with the office of Governor-General — and, of course, the office of the Lieutenant-Governor here within the province.

Her predecessor Mr. Schreyer will be, I think, not the ambassador to Australia but, in proper protocol terms, the High Commissioner of Canada to Australia. I'm sure that he will carry on there representing Canada in that form in a most distinguished way, as he did when he was the Premier of a province, when he was a Member of Parliament and when he was the Governor-General.

We wish Mme. Sauvé a long life ahead of her and a distinguished career as Governor-General.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, if it is agreed, the Chair will undertake to send the appropriate messages as outlined in the addresses.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: In the precincts today and in the galleries are several people from my constituency and others. I don't want to single anyone out, but I would like to thank them all for working very hard to win a very important by-election for me three years ago today. I know the House would like to make them welcome.

MR. REYNOLDS: In your gallery this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to welcome some people from my constituency and some from out of town. My campaign manager Mr. Don Shwery's wife, Mrs. Virginia Shwery, is in your gallery, and with her today is Don's mother, Mrs. Christena Shwery, all the way from Windsor, Ontario, and friends of hers, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Foster. I'd like the House to make them all welcome.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is a young man who is often a visitor to the galleries here in Victoria, but I would like to introduce him today. He is from my constituency, and he has recently been elected president of the Cowichan-Malahat New Democratic Party Constituency Association. I would like the House to welcome Dominique Roelants.

MR. PARKS: In the galleries this afternoon I notice that a constituent of mine has arrived. I had the pleasure of serving six years on the council for the district of Coquitlam, and during that period of time the deputy clerk had occasion to

[ Page 4710 ]

make my job much easier than it would otherwise have been. I'd like the House to join with me in making very welcome Mrs. Sandra Aikenhead.

MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, on Saturday evening a man went over the side of the ferry Queen of Saanich halfway between Active Pass and Tsawwassen but was rescued in a truly heroic effort by the crew. I believe that members will be amazed to learn, as I was, that the man was actually picked out of the water just six minutes after he went over the side.

There are many thousands who use our B.C. ferries every year — our own people and people from all over the world. I believe that we should be very proud of our outstanding ferry service and its crews in general. But I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if on this occasion the House would agree to express its commendations to Capt. Myerscough and the crew of the Queen of Saanich for their outstanding heroism and efficiency. It's truly a proud occasion for every British Columbian.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our caucus I wish to add our congratulations to the crew and master of the vessel. These people are extremely well-trained in their profession. I think on this occasion the people who work for the B.C. Ferry Corporation have the opportunity to indicate to the public of British Columbia just how hard they work and how well-trained they are.

MR. SPEAKER: Again, hon. members, if it is agreed, the Chair will undertake the appropriate message as outlined.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

Introduction of Bills

HEALTH STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

Hon. Mr. Nielsen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Health Statutes Amendment Act, 1984.

Bill 29 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

EASTER SEAL SERVICES
FOR DISABLED CHILDREN

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy), but unfortunately she is once again not present in the House. I will have to go to the Provincial Secretary as her alternate. The B.C. Lions Society for Crippled Children has announced major losses of mortgage investments. Some $521,000 in mortgage investments are tied up in real estate held for resale, and it is our understanding that a total of $1.2 million is at risk in investments.

What action has the minister taken or the government taken to preserve the Vancouver Easter Seal bus service for handicapped children this summer, which appears to be jeopardized by the Lions Society financial status?

[2:15]

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, the member suggests that the Easter Seal bus service is liable to be jeopardized by the losses of the Lions Club on mortgages. That isn't the information I have. I'm wondering if that is a supposition or a bit of imagination on the part of the second member for Victoria.

MR. BLENCOE: I will rephrase my question. It has been indicated by the Lions Society that they will no longer be able to continue their Easter Seal bus service for handicapped children. At the same time, we have had indications that the Lions Society is in financial trouble. I am wondering if the government or the minister has taken appropriate action to ensure that that service for handicapped children will be continued and will not be jeopardized.

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'm certainly prepared to look into that particular question. I want to say that the information is that the buses and Easter Seal Camp and the Easter Seal House are not going to be jeopardized by their partial losses in investments in second and third mortgages. Mr. Speaker, I don't want to alarm the people of British Columbia by the question that has been posed to me and I hope we will be able to come back with an answer tomorrow, indicating very clearly that the services are continuing to be in place.

DYNATEK FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question to the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications. The principals of Dynatek Electronics Corp. fired the remainder of their executive staff and closed their offices in Vancouver and Victoria. In view of these developments, will the minister advise what assurances he has received from Dynatek that they will be able to meet their obligations to manufacture microchips, as proposed, on Saanich Peninsula?

HON. MR. McGEER: None, Mr. Speaker.

MR. NICOLSON: I will ask a new question. In a news release dated March 30, 1983, the minister said he expected Dynatek to complete its financial requirements in the next few weeks. Will the minister advise when he now expects the company to complete its financial requirements?

HON. MR. McGEER: I have no idea, Mr. Speaker. The company has agreements with the federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce and with the British Columbia Development Corporation. I could undertake to determine from BCDC what the status is as far as our provincial Crown corporation is concerned.

MR. NICOLSON: I have a new question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that Dynatek has made no serious investment — it's now eight months behind the original start-up date announced by the minister — is the minister prepared to make the incentive package available that was put together between B.C. Development Corporation and the federal government or to promote having that same package made available to other investors who may be able to salvage something from this apparently failed project?

[ Page 4711 ]

HON. MR. McGEER: As I understand it, Mr. Speaker, the key element of the Dynatek operation has been the placing of orders for equipment and therefore the ability to go into production — should they be able to get their financing together. Of course, it is a great disappointment that this corporation, having been offered so much in the way of assistance from both the federal and the provincial government, should still be unable to locate investors willing to undertake the considerably reduced risk that would be involved in a production plant in Canada. I say that given the very brisk market which has been available for the last couple of years in terms of the product that Dynatek and its competitive organizations are willing to offer. Perhaps we have a Canadian story there: despite all of this, an unwillingness to assume risks of the competitive international marketplace.

BUS SERVICE TO COWICHAN
BAY AND SHAWNIGAN LAKE

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser), responsible for Island Coach Lines, I'll direct my question to the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond), who, I understand, is his alternate.

The new owners of Pacific Coach Lines on Vancouver Island service have cancelled all bus service to Cowichan Bay and Shawnigan Lake. Why has the minister allowed the new owners to discontinue this service unilaterally and unfairly?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, as I am unaware of the details of that operation, I would be happy to take the question as notice for the minister.

MRS. WALLACE: A new question, Mr. Speaker. The new company, Island Coach Lines, has obtained authority from the Motor Carrier Commission to conduct scheduled bus service on Vancouver Island, as a consequence of buying buses from Pacific Coach Lines. Why has the government not required the new owners to maintain service in order to obtain licences from the Motor Carrier Commission, and will the minister file a copy of the agreement on behalf of that company?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Once again I will take those questions as notice for the minister.

UNFAIR LABOUR PRACTICES

MR. GABELMANN: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. The Labour Relations Board order released Friday found that the owners of Pizza Hut involved the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) in an unfair labour practice by thrusting the minister in the middle of a labour dispute. This is now the second unfair labour practice committed by a cabinet member. Has the minister decided to explain the relevant legislation not only to the Minister of Municipal Affairs but to his cabinet colleagues so that those ministers do not again stumble into unfair labour practices?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'm available to explain legislation to anyone, including that member, who doesn't understand the current legislation on the floor.

COWICHAN ESTUARY

MRS. WALLACE: My question is to the Minister of Environment, and it has to do with a very old topic, the Cowichan estuary. Order-in-council 3339 says: "An environmental assessment committee is structured to review and assess proposals with environmental implications for the Cowichan estuary." Did that committee assess the recent construction of a dike on property owned by Doman Industries?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker. I'll have to take the question as notice to get the exact particulars.

MRS. WALLACE: May I ask the minister if order-in-council 3339 is still in effect, or has it been repealed? If it is in effect, why wouldn't it have been followed?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Not having the advantage of prepreparation on order-in-council 3339.... I don't remember them all — as many as I put through or deal with from memory, so I'll have to look it up.

MRS. WALLACE: The Ministry of Environment recently made application to rezone 23 acres of Doman Industries property from agricultural to public use. Why is the Ministry of Environment acting on behalf of a private landowner in a zoning application before North Cowichan council — and on to the ALR?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I think if the member had read the Cowichan estuary plan implementation, she'd have realized that there was an exchange of land there whereby some of the land behind the dike was to go into agriculture and some of the other land was to go into waterfront environmental use.

MRS. WALLACE: I have obviously read the report much more closely than the minister. What I'm asking is: why is his ministry taking forward the application to have the Doman property excluded from the ALR and rezoned from agriculture to public use? Why is his ministry involved in doing this for a private landowner?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I will take that as notice — to determine, first of all, if what the member says is correct.

MRS. WALLACE: On May 2 the North Cowichan municipality voted unanimously to request a delay in the implementation of the government's Cowichan estuary plan until a public forum is held. Has the minister decided to allow this public input, or is the government going ahead regardless?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: As I understand it, the Cowichan estuary has been studied for something like 12 to 15 years, with considerable public input. As a result of the public input, a decision was finally made. Then they want a public hearing. I don't know how long you would prolong this. No, the decision has been made, and the implementation report is in effect.

[ Page 4712 ]

PROVINCE-SUN STRIKE

MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, in view of the detrimental effect that the Province-Sun strike is having on our daily question period, has the minister considered involving himself in this dispute?

MRS. WALLACE: It's interesting that the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Brummet) is not prepared to listen to North Cowichan's unanimous request.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, this is question period.

COWICHAN ESTUARY

MRS. WALLACE: I have a question now, Mr. Speaker, for the Minister of Agriculture. Will the minister advise whether an application has been made to the Agricultural Land Commission to have the 23 acres owned by Doman Industries removed from the agricultural land reserve?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: There is no application before me at this time.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACT

MR. GABELMANN: I have another question to the Minister of Labour. Concern has been widely expressed that the new Human Rights Act, Bill 11, may violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I'm not suggesting that it does, but concern has been expressed that it might. In view of that, has the minister decided to refer the new Human Rights Act to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights prior to proclamation by cabinet?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No. And the previous question I would take as notice, Mr. Speaker.

QUINSAM COAL PROJECT

MR. GABELMANN: I have a question to the Minister of Environment on another subject altogether. Can the minister tell us what has happened to the report of the public inquiry on the Quinsam coal project?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Yes, very soon.

MR. GABELMANN: What's very soon?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I answered your question. You asked can I tell you, and I said yes, very soon I can tell you.

MR. GABELMANN: Has the minister decided that when that report is released it will be made public?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Yes, I can assure that member that any time a report is released it is made public.

[2:30]

Mr. Pelton, Chairman of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, presented the committee's fourth report, which was read as follows and received:

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows:

"Preamble to Bill PR402 intituled An Act Respecting Central Trust Company and Crown Trust Company has been approved and the bill ordered to be reported.

"All of which is respectively submitted. Austin Pelton, Chairman, Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills."

Hon. Mr. Brummet tabled the report to the Minister of Environment on the public inquiry into the Quinsam coal project.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave for the committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills to reconvene this afternoon at 3 o'clock, while the House is sitting.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 28.

LABOUR CODE AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

(continued)

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, this bill was introduced for second reading on Thursday, May 12, at which time the minister took some 15 minutes to impress upon us the urgency of dealing with the labour-management situation in the province, although I suppose he called it the "labour problems" rather than the "labour-management situation."

Certainly whatever the degree of the problem, it is something about which we should all be concerned and have in mind all the time, regardless of how much time has been lost due to worker-management disputes or how many people are involved. Any time one day is lost, it's certainly important to that one person, and when a lot of days are lost, it's important to many beyond that. But I have to wonder why the timing is such that the legislation has to be introduced now, early in 1984.

It is not so long since we were hearing from government spokesmen to the effect that things have never been better from the point of view of labour-management arguments in the province. It's not so many years since that was the case. Indeed, the Ministry of Labour's own report is worth referring to in that regard. The report that I have for the year 1980 goes back to 1955, and in the 18 years from 1955 to 1972, the worst year by far was the last year of the W.A.C. Bennett regime, and that was 1972. Even in that year the ratio of stoppage duration to time worked by paid workers was 1.1 percent, certainly a high figure in that it was the highest ever. Yet one has to wonder, because no drastic action was contemplated that year, as far as we're aware. It was not felt that there was need for government to move in with the kind of legislation that they did about a week ago.

[ Page 4713 ]

Then the situation improved. We've never had a year as bad as 1972 until the year 1981, after the present administration had completed seven years in office, and that seventh year was a bad one. We shouldn't really look at that year alone; while it was 1.1 percent again, equal to the highest year in the time of this reporting period of 1955 to 1982, nevertheless the following year dropped back down to 0.4 percent in 1982. I wonder if the situation was really bad enough that the government had to feel it was important that it take some action. I suggest that the evidence is that the situation was not that bad, and the extent to which it was bad was brought on as a reaction to what this government was indeed doing.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Let me go back to 1980 when there was talk about how well we were getting along, and not just by government spokesmen but by others as well. There was a story in the Vancouver Sun — do you remember when there used to be such a paper printed, Mr. Speaker? Maybe one day there will be again. But in the issue of August 30, 1980, in an article entitled "Maturity the Mark of Survivors in the Battle," there are references to the improvement in labour-management relations that B.C. had experienced: "The union leader and the boss in B.C., adversaries over the years as they hammered out contracts in tough negotiating sessions, appear to be headed for a period of maturity in working together." If that really were the case, surely that's the direction to go — to have them working together. That was the appraisal on August 30, 1980: "Labour relations...experts give a lot of credit to the leadership among the trade unions, one of several factors they attribute to B.C.'s good record through '79 into '80" — and, indeed, the records were good in 1979 and 1980. In 1979 the ratio of stoppage to time worked was 0.3 percent; in 1980 it was 0.2 percent. So things were well in that respect in 1979 and 1980. Apart from the maturity of the union leadership, "another major contributor is the seven-year-old provincial Labour Code administered by the labour board." Mr. Speaker, that was recognized as the difference that made everyone so optimistic that as time went on things were going to be well in B.C. from the point of view of labour-management relations.

Paul Weiler wrote a book, a documentary of how the B.C. Code had survived political storms by maintaining a delicate balance of power between labour and management since 1973, when the former NDP government brought it in. So that was the role of the labour board: to maintain that delicate balance of power, and in so doing, to bring about relative harmony — not good enough, Mr. Speaker, but relative harmony — and hope for the future.

"As far as ex-teamster John Brown is concerned, the way to function today is to make sure the board is always fair in its dealings with labour and management. 'That's the key,' says Brown, who sits as a part-time panelist." Mr. Speaker, there was relative fairness at the time we set it up. At the time we brought in that legislation, there was concern raised by employees and employers that it would not be fair. Both of them were very worried about the labour legislation, but both groups came to accept it as very forward-thinking legislation — legislation that they found they could live with. They found that while they sometimes disagreed with the decisions of the Labour Relations Board, in general both parties accepted it as doing a very good job of maintaining the delicate balance of fairness between the two groups.

This article goes on with a bit of a warning:

"If there is a failing on the union side, it's in the field of organizing the unorganized. Don't mistake this as an indication that union clout is weakening. The unions still control the great majority of workers in vital primary industries, manufacturing and transportation, and are stronger than ever in the provincial and municipal civil services. And this province is still notable for having the highest percentage of organized workers of any province in the land by a good 10 percent."

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour might well consider that warning when he decides to take the next step forward in this campaign to try to destroy the effectiveness of the trade union movement in the province of British Columbia.

The Labour Relations Board thought it was good. The columnist who wrote that column quoted labour relations experts to say that things were doing well in B.C. The Minister of Labour — at that time the predecessor to the current one, Jack Heinrich — said that he was proud that the man-days lost were so low. This is in a story of the same date, August 30, 1980. So the Minister of Labour thought things were going very well in B.C. in 1980.

"Don Munroe, labour board chairman, is optimistic about future industrial relations. What he likes is that the number of voluntary settlement cases without a formal hearing has also increased. Jim Kinnaird agrees that labour and management officials are getting along better. He suggests the real militants have switched from the industrial picket line to the political demonstration designed to rectify government bungling, slip-ups or chicanery."

Mr. Speaker, one wonders whether the legislation we're dealing with and debating now is not so much a concern about labour-management relations — we're getting along so well in the opinion of everyone consulted — as a government concern about the political activity of the trade union movement. They felt that in order to be able to deal with the labour movement's participation in politics, they had to bring in legislation to try to destroy the effectiveness of the union movement.

Quoting further from Jim Kinnaird, as far as he's concerned, "the political process has been discredited not only through mismanagement of the economy" — and, Mr. Speaker, we certainly have lots of evidence of that, especially in the last ten months — "but also through scandalous carryings-on associated with such issues as Gracie's finger and Lettergate." That's the labour board chairman's side.

Then Bill Hamilton, president of the Employers' Council at that time, was quoted as saying that he used to believe that strikes and lockouts were unnecessary and could be eliminated by law. He used to believe that. He had some experience. Then he gradually realized that you can't do that. You can't outlaw strikes and lockouts in a free society. You've got to learn to walk around them and avoid them. "Management generally has made its contribution to the new-found harmony, because it has changed with the times," said Hamilton.

Mr. Speaker, this minister has not been prepared to change with the times. He was particularly pleased with the efforts being made on all sides — labour, management and

[ Page 4714 ]

government — to approve apprenticeship training programs and to try to ease a serious shortage of skilled tradesmen. That was the experience in 1980. Things were looking good. But it didn't suit the government's plan. They didn't want things to look that good between labour and management, especially when they came to the awareness that more and more of the trade unions were dissatisfied with this present administration and were determined to take them on politically.

The first step in that program was, of course, leaving aside all the resolutions that came up at Socred Party conventions from time to time wanting drastic changes in the labour legislation. The references in the minister's presentation last Thursday to the many conferences, the many people who have contacted him about changing the labour legislation — all that pressure on the government, pressure that some of them welcomed, some of them indeed supported some drastic changes to the Labour Relations Act....

They welcomed all that. They were looking forward to being able to do it and have been trying to come up with something ever since the government was elected in December 1975.

They wrestled with it but with a slim majority, they weren't quite prepared to take on the trade union movement. It was the same thing after the 1979 election; they had a slimmer majority after 1979. Once again they talked boldly in convention about making changes, and the Minister of Labour of the time, whoever it was, kept insisting that he would never bring in that kind of legislation. The government wasn't interested in right-to-work legislation. They wanted harmony between the employers and the employees. And harmony we had; harmony we experienced in the year 1980, as I've shown from remarks from different people, people from all walks of life.

That's not the end of it, Mr. Speaker. There's another one that I would like to quote from March 24, 1981: "In a speech to a western economic conference in Vancouver, Premier Bill Bennett included in his remarks a defence of B.C.'s labour relations, giving labour peace credit for helping the province to remain economically healthy during the past several years. In effect, he praised trade unionists for helping the cause." In March 1981 the Premier was so pleased with trade union relationships, so pleased that trade unionists were helping B.C., helping the cause, helping us maintain our economic situation in the province.

Then in February 1982, just 11 months later, Mr. Speaker, the Premier started his open campaign against the trade union movement. On a TV program, when he had asked for time to do it, he went on the air and started talking about the need to cut back, about the need for restraint. There was no real program, but the government was going to start cutting back, because it was supposed to make it easier for businesses operating in the private sector to compete if they didn't have to continue carrying the "dead weight of government," as it was put.

Well, that was February 1982; that was the beginning. They thought they were approaching an election campaign, and this seemed to be the right thing to say at the time. But the polls didn't come out favourably, so they walked away from that election campaign. That was the year, Mr. Speaker, you recall, that the budget came in predicting a break-even position — a budget that, as time went on, proved to be just about $1 billion out. That was the year that we had a billion-dollar deficit rather than the break-even position predicted by the Minister of Finance.

[2:45]

But so be it. The Premier tried it. He had his speech in February 1982; he had his TV time. He talked about cutting back and reducing the load on small business, large business and business generally of carrying this dead weight of government. It didn't fly, so he backed away from it and brought in the budget that was a lie from beginning to end — not a lie that I'm attributing to any individual, Mr. Speaker, but it was a lie from beginning to end. Certainly the Ministry of Finance knew that the figures were not real.

Then in the fall of 1982, once again the government approached the idea of calling an election. You will remember that infamous report on redistribution, Mr. Speaker, which was going to create seven new seats — six, at least — in relatively safe Socred ridings. Then when it came down it turned out to be six or seven — we're not sure — and the government was under such criticism in the community that they backed away from that and once again backed away from the starting gate and did not call the election. But they continued this talk of restraint.

The budget that was introduced that year, as I say, was $1 billion out, but they lost the opportunity to call the election. So it appears, though, as if they were going to have another budget. They tried to do the election in the fall of '82 and backed away from it. Then in January 1983, you'll remember, the weatherman started telling us how great things were in B.C. By that time things were getting pretty bad. To quite an extent, our economy had stopped functioning. Unemployment was very high. The weatherman was on night after night telling us how great things were, how lucky we were to be living in B.C. Everything was wonderful and improving. Everyone knew that it wasn't true; nevertheless, he did it very convincingly night after night on television.

After four months of this advertising, spending millions of dollars to persuade people that they were lucky to be living in B.C., the government finally got up its nerve and called the election. They continued to talk about restraint — no question about that — with the promise that there would be no firings. Relations between management and labour continued on not too badly at this time. Then the election, and the hammer fell with the budget of July 7. The government didn't bring in a budget; they waited until after the election, because when they introduce a budget they also have to tell us what happened in the past year. They weren't prepared to tell the people of the province that they had so mismanaged the economy that they had run us $1 billion in debt in just one year. So they put off bringing in a budget until after the election. With that budget on July 7, they brought in 26 pieces of legislation, many of which were a direct attack on the trade union movement, in particular the unions operating in the public sector.

That was the real beginning of the campaign to try to destroy the effectiveness of the trade union movement in B.C. One cabinet member was reported to have said, in a private session with a group of people, that the government had shown the people operating in the private sector what it was prepared to do with public employees; now it was up to the private sector to take on those employees operating in the private sector. That gave them the clue that they could count on the support of government in any such campaign.

For political reasons the government did take on the trade union movement, starting with the July 7 budget. It took them on with many pieces of legislation, to the extent that they aroused the kind of public campaign that had never

[ Page 4715 ]

happened before in the province of British Columbia — rallies such as we'd never seen. All the time those rallies were going on, while people were concerned about the bills that had come in, no one really knew what the government was going to do with respect to labour relations. We had heard rumours over the months and years that there were going to be substantial changes to the Labour Relations Act, but they never quite got to the point of putting them down on paper which they were prepared to table in the House. Even when they finally got around to doing it, apparently they weren't able to produce the bill other than by Xerox copy.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I haven't heard strike before. Under this legislation it would be called a strike. I don't think it was called a strike under the old one, but I'm not sure.

I've tried to introduce the background to show that from the point of view of labour-management relations, things were going along quite well in the province of British Columbia. I'm trying to show that the first overt action on the part of the government to upset those relations was the Premier's speech in February 1982; the next step was in July 1983, when the budget came in along with 26 pieces of legislation. The government got into so much hot water with everything else that at that time it did back away from changing the Labour Relations Act, but everyone knew that somewhere down the street that bill was coming in as well. Indeed, just last week the bill did come in — a bill calculated to make trouble, a bill bound to make trouble between labour and management.

I'd like to refer to the Minister of Labour's remarks. He starts out by saying: "This government believes that these practical and even-handed adjustments...." It's hard to believe, but he certainly had all of our attention at the beginning of his remarks. We were waiting to see what he would have to say about this legislation. Very early in his speech — in the first sentence — he described the changes that he introduced as "even-handed adjustments." He said it without smiling. I was watching. I couldn't believe it. If he had smiled, at least it would have shown he was human, because he certainly knows there's nothing even-handed about the changes he has proposed in the Labour Relations Act. If one needed any further evidence of that.... I don't know why anybody would; it's so obvious from the changes that they're one-sided. He says they're even-handed, when to my knowledge there hasn't been a single supporting voice from outside of this Legislature, let alone inside, other than the present manager of the Employers' Council. I have heard him say that this will help in labour-management relations, that it is — perhaps not "even-handed"; I think he didn't use those words; but he did suggest that there is balance in the changes. Well, everyone else whom I've heard quoted has predicted trouble in labour-management relations. Soon after the changes came out I heard Chuck McVeigh of the Construction Labour Relations Association forecasting that it would lead to more trouble, rather than improve the situation between labour and management in that industry — and that's the one where it's supposed to be dealing with the problem.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

"Even-handed," the kind of changes we're proposing here? The minister must have been joking. Yet he didn't laugh, and I didn't notice anybody else on his side laughing. Certainly we couldn't laugh under the circumstances, and nobody in the community is laughing. They're not even-handed; they're loaded very heavily on one side. The strength of the labour legislation that we introduced, the strength of the Labour Board, the references I've referred to, the quotations from the previous Minister of Labour, the Premier and labour leaders, the Employers' Council — the predecessor, Bill Hamilton: all emphasized the even-handed way in which labour-management relations were being handled in British Columbia. If this legislation is passed in its present form, that even-handedness is going to disappear. Once we remove that even-handedness, which has been credited with establishing such good relations between labour and management, then I fear that we are in for bad days in labour-management relations in the province of British Columbia. The government knows that. They know that they're walking into trouble. They must be doing it deliberately. There's no other excuse for bringing in this kind of action. It's either stupid or deliberate, Mr. Speaker. I wouldn't call them stupid; I do call them deliberate. They're deliberately trying to provoke confrontation in the hope that they can use that in their campaign to destroy the effectiveness of the trade union movement in British Columbia.

"As an aside, Mr. Speaker" — again I'm quoting from the Minister's speech in the Blues — "as the months go on — particularly during the summer — it will be seen that these amendments are part of an ongoing process that this government has for laying a solid foundation for building our economic recovery." That worries me. In the July budget of last year, and with legislation, we took action that was supposed to lead to economic recovery. The Premier's speech in February 1982 was supposed to start us on the road to recovery; the budget of July 1983 was another step forward. What was the effect of that step forward, Mr. Speaker? You know the statistics as well as everyone else in B.C. You know that B.C. has become worse from the point of view of the number of bankruptcies of businesses and of individuals. From the point of view of the rate of increase in unemployment, B.C. is worse than any other province in Canada. That's B.C. Social Credit recovery.

If that's what the government did in July 1983, and if they're now bringing in legislation that is bound to create more confrontation and, as I say, can only be deliberately intended to provoke confrontation between labour and management.... If that is their idea of promoting recovery, one has to wonder what steps they are considering for the summer of this year. What can be worse than what they've already done? What can be worse than the legislation we're currently debating? We can only speculate, but we also have to worry in view of this government's record of improving our economy. We can't stand much more of that kind of improvement. It would be better if they got out of the way and left the economy alone, rather than continued to improve it in the way they have. We can't afford a much greater rate of unemployment. We can't afford more bankruptcies.

The minister finds it difficult to understand some of the criticism to the effect that the consultative process was not followed. I listened to that part carefully, and I reread it just to see that I heard it right. He did talk about consultation: "lengthy and ongoing process of consultation between myself" — well, he was in it — "senior officials of my ministry" — that helps — "and a broad cross-section of the people involved in the labour relations process in this province —

[ Page 4716 ]

and others as well, including private citizens who only have an interest.... Between 250 and 300 submissions..." — a lot of consultation. Mr. Speaker, did you notice that there was not one reference to a trade union movement? There was no consultation with any of the trade unions or any of the trade unionists. He has mentioned and belaboured this point about consultation. If there really was even one trade unionist or one trade union involved in that process, don't you think the minister would have tried to bolster his position by making reference to that particular trade unionist or trade union? I suspect, and I think the minister's speech confirms this, that while he did indeed consult with employers, and Social Crediters at Social Credit Party conventions who wanted changes made, and non-union employers in particular, there was no consultation at all with organized employers, organized employees or their organizations. I am sure that minister would have been pleased to announce that he did consult with them, even if he ignored them. It would appear that he didn't even consult with them, let alone pay any attention to what they might have said.

[3:00]

"The past couple of years have been very difficult for our province and our people." That was a point that I referred to at the very beginning of my speech, and indeed they have. But we were doing very well in the years before that, in the appraisal of many people, including the Minister of Labour at the time and the Premier. It wasn't until the Premier decided that the government should get involved in the process and start interfering on the side of management that these last couple of difficult years started. Indeed they have been difficult, but the fault lies on the government's own shoulders. Government action, in the person of the Premier, made things what they have been in the last two years, and that could only have happened deliberately.

"Events have been dominated by our government's efforts to bring us out of that recession and to encourage recovery." Everything they have done since the election of May 1983 has been in the opposite direction and has hurt the economy. The tax increases they levied in the July budget of 1983 and the threats to fire without cause some 75,000 people hurt the economy. You can't threaten that many people with layoff without doing some damage to the economy. It's not just the people who are directly going to be laid off. They all have friends and relations — some of them work in the public sector and some don't, but they work in the community. Every one of those is intelligent enough to know that if someone else is laid off, they could be the next. If they're not next, the fact that the economy is being hurt by the increasing rate of unemployment is going to hurt every member of the B.C. community.

Everyone recognized that it was going to hurt; there couldn't be any other conclusion from the government's decision to fire without cause some 75,000 people. The government knew that when they brought in that threat. So for the minister to say that everything they have done has been to promote recovery, when it's obvious that everything they have done has had the opposite effect — and was predicted to have had the opposite effect.... It is obvious to me that they have been quite prepared to do any damage whatever to the economy as long as they could pursue their goal, which was to destroy the effectiveness of the trade union movement.

I quote again from the speech that the minister read in the House last Thursday: "It's no surprise that economic recovery within the continued framework of restraint in government spending has been the paramount issue as far as our administration is concerned." If economic recovery really was their goal, then they certainly failed miserably. If challenging the trade unions was their goal, they failed in that last fall too, and had to back away. I think they're doing better this spring by bringing on one issue after another.

I don't think they have succeeded in restraining government spending. You will recall that the budget that came in in July 1983 provided for a 16 percent increase in spending. The budget that was introduced in February of this year called for a nil increase, but even at that rate it works out to an average of 8 percent per year over a two-year period. That is not restraint, at a time when the cost of living is going up some 5 percent. So they haven't achieved restraint in government spending, and if the purpose of all of this was to reduce what they call the "dead weight" of government cost on business, when is business, or anyone else, going to see some of that load removed? When are they going to see some reduction in taxes? Taxes have gone up with both budgets introduced since the Minister of Finance brought in a budget after the election. Spending and taxes have gone up. No cost of government has been reduced as far as the private sector is concerned; they're paying more all the time.

"Ours is basically an open economy, with two-thirds of our wealth generated by our export trade." What is the government doing about it, other than sending cabinet minister after cabinet minister on junkets all over the world, nice holidays paid for by the taxpayers? What has the government done about it? At least, Mr. Speaker, when we were in office we sent the Speaker on some of these trips. But they're not even doing that. It's the cabinet ministers that are getting all the trips all around the world. One after another, travelling to one country after another, and they're still saying that we depend upon our export economy; two-thirds of our economy is exports alone. But when are they going to make some changes in that, Mr. Speaker?

During the time we were in office, we did travel and we did try to build up export trade. But we weren't content with the fact that we depended so entirely upon exports, and in the three-year period we did something to try to get the economy in British Columbia moving on its own rather than rely completely upon exports. Mr. Speaker, we did make an attempt to get some changes in our economy. They've done nothing to try to generate a greater level of secondary or tertiary industry here in the province. They concentrated almost entirely upon exporting our raw materials or relatively unprocessed materials, and now they're saying that we depend for two-thirds of our economy upon export trade. Well, of course, Mr. Speaker, and it's to their shame that that is still the case after some eight years in office and after some 20 years in office as a party before that. After 28 years as the government of British Columbia they still say on Thursday, May 1984, that two-thirds of our economy depends upon export trade. That in itself is an admission of failure, if after all that time nothing has been achieved to decrease our total dependence upon particularly the American market and to some extent other markets. They have failed. They haven't done anything to try to improve the development of our economy within British Columbia. They have concentrated only on trying to export more and more of our raw materials so that we can buy back the things we need for our economy.

[ Page 4717 ]

"Our future success lies in meeting and beating that competition." Well, the Scandinavians are beating the competition for our lumber products and our pulp products by devaluing their dollar. We've tried that in Canada to quite an extent and that hasn't worked. How far would the minister want us to go by devaluation in order to compete with the Scandinavians, who can keep on devaluing as long as they wish to compete with us? Are we really that totally dependent upon the rest of the world? Is there nothing we can do within our own province to improve our own economic lot? Is the government completely devoid of any ideas? Is the government's solution to all of these problems simply to send the cabinet ministers away from Victoria so they don't make too much trouble and don't get in too much trouble here? Send them around the rest of the world and keep them out of the way: is that their only solution to the problems of British Columbia?

"There are no longer any automatic customers for our resources and services." Once again, Mr. Speaker, if that's the case, let's do something here in B.C. to build up our own economy. Let's not just find more people who will buy our coal if we subsidize it. Let's not just find more people who will buy round logs if we're prepared to ship them out at minimum labour content to the product here in B.C. That's the direction of their efforts; nothing to try to improve anything in B.C. Well, I suppose there is one exception: the Toyota wheel plant, financed with no-interest government loans, provincial and federal. Today we heard about Dynatek, another one that was getting all kinds of help from the province and from the federal government. Cheap money for things like that, Mr. Speaker, but nothing to bring anything new to get anything really going. Where is Dynatek now? Even the minister responsible for it was walking away from it today, and I don't blame him. Perhaps he's so busy digging that tunnel that he hasn't had time to concentrate on Dynatek. Maybe when he gets the tunnel dug he'll have time to work on something else.

"Better and more stable labour-management relations will be crucial to the process." Mr. Speaker, nothing could be truer. I quoted from a lot of people about how good labour-management relations were in B.C. some two, three or four years ago. The Premier said it, the then Minister of Labour said it, trade unions said it, employers said it. Everyone said it was good in B.C. and they didn't get bad until the Premier decided that they were so good that he had to intervene and stir up the pot because the public generally accepted the idea that trade unionists were becoming responsible people, as was said in some of the documents I read. They were becoming responsible, and people were accepting the fact that trade unionists were cooperating. It was Hamilton that talked about the cooperation among government, employers and employee organizations. This kind of cooperation was being boasted about in B.C. just three years ago. The Premier couldn't accept that situation, Mr. Speaker. If he were going to destroy the trade union movement, once again he had to make the trade union movement the whipping-boy for things that were going on wrong in the province. So he had to start stirring up the pot.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Do you really believe this stuff?

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, he asks if I really believe it. Introduce some evidence. It was the Premier that boasted about how well things were going in B.C. He credited the trade union movement with doing their share in keeping the economy going. That was your Premier — Mr. Speaker, not yours, but his; the one interjecting across the road — saying how well things were going. It was too good to last; the employees had to be taught a lesson; they had to be taught that no longer could they get embarked on political activities. The Premier didn't like the way they became involved in the 1983 election campaign, so he decided that for the sake of future campaigns, the trade unions had to be taken on — and that's what this is doing; it's going to hurt the economy.

I remember a trade union leader saying during the war, when the President of the United States decided to take them on and was going to send in the army to make sure that the coal-miners dug coal: "Send them in; you can't dig coal with bayonets." Mr. Speaker, this kind of legislation is going to be a challenge to the trade union movement. It's not going to be an invitation urging them to continue to cooperate with management and with government; it's going to be a challenge to them to see whether or not they're prepared to knuckle under or whether they are going to fight for the right of their organizations to live. If you destroy the effectiveness of those trade union organizations, then you destroy their very reason for living at all. This legislation will do nothing but harm in the province of British Columbia, and the government, I submit, Mr. Speaker, is doing it deliberately.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I guess the government has decided not to participate any further in this debate, but the opposition still has a few more things to say, so we will carry on. As my colleague for Nanaimo just stated, the intent of the bill is to destroy the trade union movement. It would be interesting if the trade union movement were air, gas, wood or something without substance or without feeling or without life, but in fact, the trade union movement is made up of people — human beings — and when you bring in legislation to destroy the movement, what the legislation in fact does is hurt the members of that particular group. It hurts the people who depend on it, who first came to realize the importance of organizing and building a strong movement and a strong union in order to get better working conditions and a decent wage, and also in order to ensure that they have some kind of mechanism for dialogue to take place with the employers as well as with their other membership. A piece of legislation which destroys that does damage to both — it does damage to the workers themselves and at the same time it does damage to the employers — because it destroys the mechanism that they used to use and used to be able to depend on in terms of negotiations.

[3:15]

The interesting thing about this, Mr. Speaker, is that when this bill was introduced originally, it had the unanimous support of all the members in this House. The members who were in opposition at that time — who are now the government — did not vote against that original Labour Code. There were Liberals sitting in the House at that time, Mr. Speaker; they did not vote against that Labour Code. There were Conservatives sitting on the floor of the Legislature at that time and they also voted in support of that Labour Code. As a matter of fact, when one goes back and reads the newspapers of the day — the Code was introduced in 1973 — we find that the Sun Victoria bureau reported that it was the first time in the history of the House that a labour bill was passed unanimously. It says: "Members of the Social Credit, Liberal and

[ Page 4718 ]

Conservative parties have said that they view the bill as a genuine attempt to solve labour relations problems and that that was the reason why they supported it in principle."

Mr. Speaker, as we go through the bill, we find that actually the people who were critical of the bill and who had some constructive criticism to make were members of the government side of the day, New Democratic members rather than opposition members. The opposition members all stated that they had some apprehension prior to the introduction of the bill, but once they saw the Code they realized that it was long overdue and recognized that it was going to improve the whole labour relations climate of the province, and they voted in support of it. That's precisely what happened.

Right across Canada, other provinces looked at the Labour Code and began to amend their legislation in line with some of the clauses of the Labour Code, because they recognized that the Code in fact worked in the best interest of all the people concerned. It worked in the best interest of the organized workers — the trade unionists. It even worked in the interest of unorganized workers, as well as of management and the province as a whole.

You would have assumed then, because everyone recognizes that no piece of legislation is perfect.... As times change and things happen, all pieces of legislation sooner or later need to be amended and improved. You would have assumed that the present Minister of Labour, deciding to open the Code, would have decided to improve the Code. But that is not what this bill in fact does. It destroys that labour climate which the Code tried to create, and in fact does damage both to organized labour and unorganized labour, to the employers and to the whole climate of labour relations in this province.

What I specifically want to talk about today is one group of people for whom the whole concept of organizing as workers is of vital importance. I'm talking about women, whom the latest statistics place in the fastest-growing component in the whole field of work. There are more women entering the labour force today than ever before, and certainly there are more women than men entering the labour force. The tragedy of the situation, of course, is that most of the women in the labour force are not organized. They are not members of trade unions. They are still largely confined to the job ghettos of service employees — clerical and domestic areas, which have never enjoyed the protection that one gets when one is able to come together and form a trade union. The reason that trade unions are so important to them is because, being in unorganized ghettos, they tend to have to work under very poor working conditions for low wages. In most instances they have no benefits. If they have any benefits at all, they have the absolute minimum, such as the Canada Pension Plan and unemployment insurance. The concept of a safe workplace, maternity leave and those kinds of things are difficult for them to achieve, because they do not have the strength that comes from being part of an organization which can speak for them and represent them and help them in terms of their relationships with their employers.

The end result of this is the kind of statistics on poverty which we still see and experience, not just in British Columbia but right across Canada today, where we find that one woman out of every six is living below the poverty line — this despite the fact that they are working in the labour force. A large number of these women living below the poverty line are not women at home. They are not necessarily retired or senior citizens. But they are women working in the job ghettos, where they do not have the protection of a strong group to speak for them and help them secure decent wages that would lift them above the poverty level. Three out of every five people in Canada living below the poverty line are women. These are the statistics that we are experiencing today, close to ten years after the United Nations declared the international Decade for Women, which was dedicated to helping women get out of the poverty ghetto and improve the quality of their lives. The fact of the matter is that one of the reasons why women are still poor, despite the fact that they've had an International Women's Year, an internation women's decade and the women's liberation movement and all these other things working for them, is that they work for poor wages. In many instances, if they get a pension it is inadequate. So what we have is women who are poor while they are in the workforce and poor after they leave the workforce. They live in poverty and they die in poverty.

These are tough economic times for all of us — we recognize that. The Canadian labour movement, not just here in British Columbia but right across Canada, is finding itself in a situation where it's not just having to negotiate with corporate negotiators but is having to negotiate with governments as well. They're having to fight for decent working conditions for their membership on both levels — as I've said, against large corporations and against governments. What happens is that many of the gains which accrue to labour as a result of being able to negotiate in this arena filter down to the unorganized worker. A number of the benefits which women experience even though they are not part of the organized labour force — such as maternity leave, which becomes part of law — are benefits which first came into being through negotiations; through trade unions negotiating it in contract after contract and then fighting for it to be enshrined in legislation so that those women, most of whom are not part of any organized labour force, could get the benefit of it too. The protection of women in the workplace depends totally on the gains and benefits which accrue through organized labour negotiations, and then having those benefits enshrined in our legislation. That's where it starts.

As I proceed, I'm going to be able to give some examples of job ghettos in the clerical field, the department store field and in the banking industry where women have tried and failed to organize, and as a direct result have continued to earn wages far below what is necessary to keep them above the poverty line. I want to stress this, because this piece of legislation has made it almost impossible for women in these areas of the workforce to get certification. It has made it so difficult that an already difficult labour area to organize is going to become almost impossible. At the same time, the bill has introduced a further amendment which makes it very easy indeed to decertify even those fragile groups that have organized and come together and are struggling either for their first or second contracts or, indeed, even to survive as an organized body as such. Those two amendments would be reason enough for us to speak in opposition to this piece of legislation and to vote against it, and to hope that the minister will be introducing amendments to the bill in committee stage which will change this. It can't be amended, really; it would have to be deleted altogether from the bill.

What are some of the problems which women are facing in the workforce today? One of the major threats to women employees is technological change, because technological change is making very deep incursions into the traditional female operations. Methods borrowed from the industrial sector combined with advances in electronic technology are

[ Page 4719 ]

now being applied to the service sector, which is a female job ghetto. The rate of expansion of this sector is going to be reduced, and there will be significant changes within many other of the job ghettos such as the clerical one. The standardization of products will not only eliminate job opportunities but will also entrench the ghetto, and the simplification of work skills will lead to their reduction to mere machine-tending. For example, we now have the convertible typewriter, which has virtually eliminated the need for highly skilled typists. Clerical workers are being transformed into assembly-line workers who simply process words or stuff data into communications systems. As these electronic gadgets absorb skills, the position of the workers in this area are downgraded, and they then become more vulnerable to discipline and to layoffs. This is one of the reasons why they need the protection which would accrue to them through being part of a trade union. This is why being able to certify, to be certified as a bargaining unit....

Job protection is becoming more crucial as the technological innovations impact on the service and clerical sectors of the workforce, job ghettos which are female ghettos. As a result of technological change, work for women has come full circle. Many women are finding today that they are in exactly the same positions that their mothers were in before them; indeed, more and more of them are finding that unemployment, coupled with job insecurity, renders them as vulnerable as their mothers were. Certainly it will ensure that they remain as poor as their mothers were and that they, too, will live below the poverty line, even as their mothers and grandmothers before them in the workforce were forced to live below the poverty line. They, too, find that they do not have decent pensions when they are finally coughed up and spat out of the labour force at age 55 or 60, as the case may be, and told that they are too old and no longer needed. They too find that they do not have decent and adequate pensions. These are the people who end up needing the GAIN supplement that swells the welfare rolls in this province.

[3:30]

I don't think we can speak too strongly or clearly about the importance of being able to organize and what it means to women in the workforce. In fact, even though we stand on the floor of this House and talk about decent wages and equal pay for work of equal value, when it comes into force it usually comes in as a direct result of a trade union negotiating it at contract time. Certainly that was what the women who work for the municipality of Vancouver, who were members of the CUPE local, found at that time. When CUPE went out on strike in Vancouver they made as part of their negotiations — they placed on the table — equal pay for work of equal value. They didn't actually spell it out that way, but they talked about everyone coming into the workforce at the same basic wage and then having access and opportunity to take over from there.

It didn't start here, because on the floor of this House and in this Legislature we still do not have equal pay for work of equal value. We do not even have a government commitment to equal pay for work of equal value. Those women who work in clerical jobs, in banks and in department stores, where they can work 40 hours part-time without any benefits, will also never, ever have an opportunity to be paid an amount which places a true value on their labour unless they can become part of a trade union, either through forming their own, as some clerical workers have done with SORWUC and groups like that, or being part of an existing trade union like CUPE, VMREU or some other group like that. This piece of legislation attacks that access directly. It zeroes right in on certification and blocks it, so we find that history repeats itself.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you read the book about attempts made in earlier years to organize the workers at Eaton's department store. It's called The Eaton Drive. I was reading it over the weekend. Roadblocks were thrown up in the path of those workers when they tried to organize. I noticed that in recent months a further attempt is being made, with a little bit more success. But that's not going to be possible after this bill becomes law. I don't know if you know either, Mr. Speaker, about the aborted attempts of the bank workers in British Columbia to organize and become part of a union. It started out as a small union. It was extended and taken over by a larger union with more power and clout, but it still failed.

It's so difficult to get certification, because it's so easy for management, in areas where there is insecurity and fear, to coerce and intimidate workers. It's so easy to fire without just cause or move them around and make organizing difficult. That's the reason that the Labour Code is so important and that in this particular area it should be very strong and helpful. But that's not going to happen, because this bill has zeroed in on the certification and decertification of workers.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of other things that women in the workforce depend on, and they are finding that the only area that they have to carry on the struggle with any hope of success is through organized labour.

The whole question of sexual harassment on the job, of course, has been raised on the floor of this Legislature, as it has been raised on the floor of many other legislatures right across Canada and certainly on the floor of the House of Parliament itself. Yet there is no law yet on the books which protects women in the workforce against this kind of harassment. But through their trade unions women can file grievances, and they have a group, they have a body, they have support in terms of battling this issue which for so many years was not even discussed and which women never even felt strong or secure enough to raise as an issue. But women who work in department stores, restaurants and the hospitality industry and women who to a large extent are confined to the clerical ghetto in the banks lack this kind of protection. There is absolutely nobody to speak for them, and they are not strong enough because so many clerical offices have so few women working there. Certainly, as I said, the coercion in some areas is so intense that they are so totally intimidated that they cannot protect themselves or fight for themselves.

In 1974 I spent a few weeks in Sweden, Mr. Speaker, looking at the status of women there and trying to understand how that country had managed to move so far in terms of the equality which women enjoyed compared with women in the rest of the world. Last Monday I participated in a conference in Vancouver at which the first or second member for Surrey was also in attendance. It was sponsored by the Swedish consul in cooperation with the Employers' Council of British Columbia and the B.C. Federation of Labour. What it was looking at was the role of women in Sweden and certainly women in the workforce. Once again it became so clear how far ahead of Canada they were in so many instances. When the question was put last Monday as it was put in 1974 by me — how was this possible; how did this happen? — the answer time and time again was that it was the trade unions in

[ Page 4720 ]

Sweden that pioneered these changes. They were first negotiated through contracts at negotiation time and then enshrined in legislation maybe two or three years after. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the speaker stated that consistently the government ran two or three years behind the trade unions and certainly two or three years behind the community at large in terms of enshrining things like parenting leave, maternity leave, equal pay, equal pension, insurance, protection from discrimination on the job, sexual harassment and that kind of thing.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

That's not going to be possible. That's not going to be possible because it's going to be so easy to prevent the certification, the coming together and the forming of bargaining units in areas where most of the people employed are women, where most of the people employed are insecure and have no job security whatsoever. It's going to be so easy, once this bill becomes law, to decertify even those units which presently exist, because they're so vulnerable and fragile.

Mr. Speaker, in spite of the dramatic rise in the labour force participation of women in the last ten years, the proportion of women still confined to low-paying clerical sales and service jobs has remained unchanged. Education statistics show that even though women's education level is higher than men's, the vast majority of them still continue to be streamlined into the so-called traditional women's jobs. I'm surprised that the government has not yet been able to make the connection between the large amount of money expended on welfare payments, either to single parents who are women, or to the GAIN which supplements Canada Pension on behalf of women — they cannot live on their pension alone — the link between that large expenditure on their part and the poor wages which women earn. And because they earn poor wages, they end up with either poor pensions or no pensions at all. In fact, there is a direct link there.

If the government wanted, it could go out and legislate that all women in the workforce should be paid decent wages, and that's ludicrous; it can't be done that way. One of the ways in which it can be done, of course, is through women being part of the organized labour force, because it has been beneficial to its membership. We can say whatever we want about trade unions. We can say they're horrible, mean, bad, vicious and we don't like them, but the fact remains that over the years they have protected their workers. They have fought against unfair practices and poor working conditions; they have fought for health and safety measures in the areas where their people work, and they have certainly fought for decent wages. The last statistic that we have shows that in British Columbia the average male earns something in the neighbourhood of $8,853 a year if they work. With the high unemployment that we're experiencing now, a lot of them are not earning anything at all, but on average that's what they earn. The average female earns $5,223 per year. What that works out to is that for every dollar that a man earns, a woman earns 59 cents.

We've tried to deal with this in a number of different ways. We've talked to the government about equal pay for work of equal value, about affirmative action in terms of opening up a number of job areas that are better paying, training and retraining women so that they can get into those jobs. We have not had any success at all; in fact, the government has made a deliberate decision that they would rather pay welfare, day-care subsidies and GAIN supplements than ensure that women make a decent wage when they work, so that they have a decent pension upon retirement and don't have to live below the poverty line and be dependent on the welfare purse of the province. The government made that decision not by accident but deliberately, and this, Mr. Speaker, is what the certification and decertification clause in this legislation is all about — a deliberate decision on the part of the government that women must continue to be a cheap labour pool for whoever wants to hire them; that women must continue to be insecure in their jobs — have no job security at all — and not be able to depend on seniority to protect their jobs or anything else. Department stores can continue to hire a woman to put in 40 hours of labour and still call her a part-time worker, and so not have to pay her any benefits at all.

[3:45]

That is what this section of the bill is all about, making it impossible for women to organize and fight back against unfair working conditions. I'm not even talking about the traditional groups of women who've always been exploited, such as the women who work as domestics or farm labourers. We know the difficulty that those two groups have had even under the existing legislation. Trying to organize has been impossible. For example, years after the farmworkers started organizing, they still do not have a strong union with any kind of clout to ensure that they work under decent, human working conditions. They're still treated as cattle; they're treated even worse than cattle, Mr. Speaker, and they haven't got the clout to do anything about it. So we're not even including that group; I certainly am not in the statements I'm making.

As I said before, there is no point in talking about domestic workers on the floor of this House. I have been doing it since 1972, and it hasn't had any impact at all. The concept of domestic workers being able to come together and organize for some decent working conditions is not one that one should even mention to that government over there, because they couldn't care less and are never going to do anything for them. What happens, though, is that they benefit from the trickle-down theory that when a number of benefits which trade unions fight for, and win, eventually become enshrined in our legislation, despite all of the government's efforts they too benefit from that. It's hard for me to think of any benefits that domestics have had in the last couple of years, because they're still victimized by people who won't pay their wages, by having to work seven days a week, by not getting decent holiday time off, and so forth and so on. Of course, the farmworkers are still being victimized by the farm contractors, and none of this touches them at all.

The other women who work in the other female ghettos have benefited to some slight degree by the government finally being forced to enshrine maternity leave and holiday pay and that kind of thing in legislation — all of which originally started as a direct result of negotiations.

The Globe and Mail of February 24 of this year talked about working women as being second-class citizens in Canada. It's not just British Columbia, although this piece of legislation makes it more difficult for working women in British Columbia. But I wouldn't want to leave the impression that working women anywhere in Canada get a fair shake or are treated decently by any government, because that's not true. This particular piece of legislation, and the sections dealing with certification, decertification and dues, has special meaning, and is going to have a special impact on

[ Page 4721 ]

this group whom this article referred to as second-class citizens in our country. It says:

"Although huge numbers of women entered the workforce in the past 14 years, 70 percent of them are still concentrated in the service and retail sectors, principally in the rapidly expanding fast-food and restaurant industry, data-processing, services to buildings and the booming health-care business. They found jobs as waitresses, dental assistants, cleaning women and secretaries — all women's work. These are dead-end jobs offering little security or opportunity for advancement. Only 12 percent of positions in these sectors are supervisory, as compared with 28 percent in manufacturing. Most are unprotected by unions and collective agreement benefits. Computers will eliminate 30 percent of bank tellers and 40 percent of secretaries and female clerks by 1990. While male unemployment increased by 2 percent between 1976 and 1978, female unemployment increased by 67 percent."

I can't believe that 40 minutes has gone by. Has it? That's not possible. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to go back and deal a little bit with the history of Sandringham and Windermere private hospitals. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the kitchens and restaurants, and a little bit about the immigrant workers for whom English is a second language, and who are running into problems, and about the kinds of struggles they had under the Labour Code as it existed — which we had hoped would have been beneficially dealt with in a positive way by this decision of the minister to open the Code. We had hoped that the minister was going to strengthen and improve the Code, so that this would have been the beginning of a serious commitment on the part of the government to help get women off the welfare rolls and GAIN supplements, to help them not to need the day-care subsidies anymore, and to help them to rise above the poverty level so that they would be able to enjoy a decent standard of living.

It's not that women don't work hard. I don't think even our most severe critic or our worst enemy would say that women are lazy and don't work hard. That's not the point. The point is that 70 percent of women are confined to low-paying jobs, and their ability to organize and make themselves into a union so they could get out of those areas and improve the working conditions in those jobs is going to be rendered impossible when this piece of legislation we're debating becomes law. For that reason, I am unalterably opposed to it.

MR. MACDONALD: Bill 28 is acceptable to some members of the public because it's supposed to be saving Expo 86. That's great political flimflam, because the Labour Code of British Columbia already covered the Expo 86 situation. There was a declaration by the labour board that either it was a common site or it wasn't, and there were cease-and-desist orders if there was illegal activity on Expo 86.

I suppose it's also acceptable to some people who don't look at it very closely because of secondary picketing, which has been dealt with by other speakers, and I'm not going into that for that reason, except to say that there are occasions when secondary picketing has got out of line. I wasn't pleased at all when the pulp workers in their particular dispute were able to shut down a sawmill with which their own employment was not particularly related.

But that's not really what's happening in this bill, and it really does give me a great deal of concern. I think the government — I suppose deliberately; I hope not — has listened to the wool hats on the back bench and is really coming out against the concept of trade unionism in the province of British Columbia — and I'll give some details — by making it very difficult for new people who most need the protection of a collective agreement to become members of a trade union and achieve that kind of agreement, and by making it easier for them to lose their security when they've had that collective agreement.

I remember the debates in the days of W.A.C. Bennett. They were hot debates; they went all through the night on more than one occasion — Bill 42, and I think there was another one, Bill 33. Check-off was a big subject of debate — about whether a union could use any of its money obtained by check-off to support a political party, the way a company could. They were big debates, but I always had the impression in the W.A.C. Bennett years that the Department of Labour and the Ministers of Labour were basically committed to the proposition that trade unionism was to be encouraged for the protection of the working people of the province of British Columbia. I have exactly the opposite impressions of this Bill 28 we have before us today.

I doubt very much if I'm exaggerating when I say that this government is anti-labour in the sense that it has turned its back upon whole decades of the history of British Columbia which favoured the right of employees to belong to trade unions. Without going into details of the bill — that's for committee, in any exact way — you have a killing provision respecting new certifications. It is common practice under the Canada Labour Code, and has been under the British Columbia Labour Code, that when a group of employees applies for certification, they do not have to put up, in addition to signing the application for membership card, their full dues for a month and their initiation fee. Yet this bill totally and unnecessarily requires it, and makes it extremely difficult for a trade union to organize among the unorganized working people of the province of British Columbia.

I wonder whether this government is really, as I suspect, turning its back on the concept of trade unionism. I wonder why they've put a provision like that into this particular legislation. What was the problem with the old practice whereby a trade union going for a certification would, under its constitution, which was filed by the board, be able to grant dispensation for that organizing period so that employees who didn't know whether the application was going to succeed or not would not have to put up their full initiation and their full month's dues until they understood where it was going? Now what was wrong with that? I've heard no complaints that that procedure was open to fraudulent abuse by either trade unions or anyone else. Yet under sections of this bill the government is putting deliberate, calculated roadblocks in the way of trade union organizations in the province of British Columbia, becoming anti trade union.

As I say these words, the Minister of Labour leaves the House, as well he might. I think he's turned his back. We have only one minister of the Crown left in the chamber as I say these words. I think this government is turning its back on the whole concept of trade unionism and the right of employees to protect themselves on the job, which has been hard-won over 150 years.

Since the time in a little village in England called Tolpuddle, where seven weavers decided that, instead of negotiating

[ Page 4722 ]

for their returns for their work individually, they would do it as a group and approach their employer as one.... Under the combines act of those years — I think it was in 1835 — they were sentenced by the local magistrate to seven years' transportation to Australia, a sentence later remitted, as I understand it. Since that time all people — and I would have thought the Social Credit Party too, despite all of the wild speeches we've heard from some of them in the Fraser Valley opposing it, with their strange ideas about trade unionism.....

[4:00]

It's perfectly acceptable for lawyers and doctors to have their trade associations and their monopoly, sanctioned by the statutes of the province of British Columbia, to make them even more secure; privileged groups are perfectly free to join together and bargain for their working conditions.... For the ordinary people of the province, for whom I suspect W.A.C. Bennett had a soft spot in his heart.... In spite of those long debates about his labour legislation, he believed in the encouragement of the right of people to belong to associations, even if they were just working stiffs — men and women who just simply worked for wages. He didn't think that should be something for the elites in some of the unions, who were in a pretty secure position. Maybe the ITU have a very good position in certain parts of the economy of the province of British Columbia. Why shouldn't people in low-paying jobs, without security and without benefits, be allowed to have the kind of thing that other people enjoy — that businessmen enjoy through their trade associations, that the professional people enjoy by statute law?

Mr. Speaker, this government is deliberately turning its back on the principle that working people have a right to organize together to improve their wages and security. I think it's a very grave decision, far more important than any provisions that might be passed so that Expo 86 can come on stream. I don't think there's any doubt that it would anyway. I think that was all political flimflam. That's what we're faced with.

There was a case that I'll refer to that shows how difficult it has been in this new order, under the Social Credit government of the province of British Columbia, for ordinary people to be treated with decent respect by the labour laws and even by the Labour Relations Board. I don't know how important the dates are, but we'll say that in October 1982 there were 19 employees who worked for a fast-food outlet called Pizza Hut. The proper name of the employer is P.H. Foods Ltd. and 15 out of 19 employees, who were among the poorer paid, and with no security.... Because the laws were there to protect them, they signed an application to be certified as a local union with the Food and Service Workers of Canada. They were granted certification because the board found that more than 55 percent of them had applied to join. But the employer protested. In June 1983 there was a full hearing before the Labour Relations Board. There was a panel of three members, and that board went into the matter exhaustively, because the question was whether Mr. X or Miss Y was part of the 55 percent, or was a proper employee on the day in question. The board went into that in a full hearing. After trying for a long time — six months — to secure a first agreement, and certification having been won and sustained on appeal after a full inquiry by the Labour Relations Board, the employees went out on a legal strike.

They were entitled to the protection of the laws. They couldn't get any agreement, and they went out on a strike.

I'm glad the Minister of Labour has returned, and I hope that somebody occasionally reads the records of this Legislature to know that he's missed some things, but I'm now telling him of some of the stuff that's going on under this new order of Social Credit in the province of B.C.

Those Pizza Hut employees embarked upon a legal strike with a certification that had been confirmed by the Labour Relations Board after an investigation, appeal, and lawyers on both sides. Then on a rush application by the employer, two weeks after they were out on strike, to the chairman of the Labour Relations Board, Mr. Steve Kelleher, the chairman, of his own motion, cancelled the certification. You wouldn't treat dogs the way those employees were treated. Here they were out on a legal strike and suddenly their legal position was swept out from under their feet. Mr. Kelleher, on his own motion, reversed careful hearings of the board that took a long time and decided what employee who should have been counted wasn't counted, or something of that kind, and the strike of the employees was illegal from that point on. What about the employees? Could they go back to work? No, the employer wouldn't take them. He had them over a barrel.

Mr. Speaker, I've heard of decisions that have denied natural justice to people, but I've never heard of anything quite so raw and wrong as that Kelleher decision. It denied natural justice. When people have achieved legal rights and they go out on a legal strike, and they're upheld by the Labour Relations Board, for a single person — even the chairman — to sweep those rights out from under their feet after they've put themselves in a position of jeopardy by going on strike is totally reprehensible.

Now I suppose the Minister of Labour is familiar with that case. He knows there have been protracted hearings before the boards since then and that there were unfair labour practices. Today's paper says that the company has agreed to pay $4,000 in damages in respect of the unfair labour practices. The employees, though, are still not reinstated. There are applications going forward to reinstate them. But we're in 1984 now, and they've been out of work. They lost their jobs and their livelihood relying on the rule of law. They belong to a small union that doesn't have a big strike fund to back them up. I don't suppose they can get unemployment insurance, because they did go out on a labour dispute. In the meantime the people of British Columbia are put to a lot of expense because of further hearings by the Labour Relations Board. They've had their certificate restored, but they can't get an agreement. They can't get their jobs back. These employees have been treated like dogs.

I don't know whether the Minister of Labour, who is smiling in his seat — and I always like to see an Irishman smile, but I don't like it on this particular occasion at this particular time.... I don't know what he plans to do, except I do know this: he is now putting all of the people who tried to form unions in jeopardy, even more than they were in the past, under this legislation, Bill 28. A Minister of Labour turning his back on the principle of trade unionism is what we have in this province, and make no mistake about it, giving way, I suppose, to the wool-hat pressures from his own back bench. If he hasn't got the spine to stand up to the wool hats, he should not be Minister of Labour and bring in legislation of this kind.

I don't know what role Mr. Ritchie, who was then the hon. member for Central Fraser Valley, played in Pizza Hut,

[ Page 4723 ]

but he was writing to the board. I've got his letter here. It was formally replied to on March 10, 1983. He was actively working for the employer. A member of this House should not do that, Mr. Speaker, because the Labour Relations Board is like a court. It's different than a court, but it's like a court. No member of this Legislature should participate and bring what appears to be influence as a member of the Legislature in a decision that should be made impartially by a Labour Relations Board.

Mr. Speaker, all through this bill you have roadblocks being placed on the right of employees to belong to unions, and the incentives given to employers to cancel the certification through the decertification procedures have been made enormously easier. Under the bill, when a union is decertified for no good reason whatsoever, if there is not anti-union animus behind this bill, no other union can become....

The agreement falls if there is a decertification vote and it carries. All of the people who worked for the union are exposed to being fired, demoted or discriminated against. The union agreement disappears, the decertification vote carries and no other union can apply for ten months.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: No, that's not the law now. There is no 10-month waiting period before another union can apply.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Ten months in there now? No, you can apply for decertification, and one union can replace another.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Look at the law.

MR. MACDONALD: If you've already changed that, Mr. Minister, you had no right doing it. This Minister of Labour is cutting the knees out from under the trade union movement and telling me that I should go and look at the law.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Ask for a recess so you can look at the law.

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, I know what I'm talking about. Let me just repeat it, Mr. Speaker. When a vote for decertification is approved, which this minister has made easier for the employer to carry with all that business that they may vote at the time of the voting and not at the time of the application for decertification, then the agreement falls and no other union can apply for ten months. Those employees are completely at risk in terms of what their employer can do to them in that period. The old law used to be that when there was a decertification, it might be for the purpose of substituting one union for another, in terms of the wishes of the employees. That's gone under this minister. This minister of anti-labour smiles and jokes and says: "Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, if the Victoria IWA went to apply for certification for a new operation today.... Its monthly membership dues are $25 and a few cents, I think, because there is a formula there, which may seem a lot, but it isn't an awful lot in terms of the service that that union gives to its members, and its initiation fees are $25. That particular local union, because of the recession, had to put its secretary on part-time, so they're really running behind on that kind of a dues structure. The Minister of Labour is saying here that in terms of any new organization, you go out there and collect not the $1 that they used to collect before to certify that the person wanted a vote to see whether the trade union should be certified, but they have to go out and collect $50 each from those new employees. Does the Minister of Labour deny that? It's right in his legislation, and for no reason except to make it more difficult for employees to belong to trade unions.

Mr. Speaker, we have here anti-union legislation such as we have not seen before in the province of British Columbia. It's the market system where the little people are to stay little, as far as this government is concerned. The kind of heart and consideration for them that I think existed in the time of W.A.C. Bennett is nowhere to be found in this prison government.

[4:15]

We're turning our backs on organization for the poorest, weakest and least protected in our society, while at the same time the privileged are allowed to have their organizations and exploit. I thought that a Minister of Labour should stick up for trade unionism. This minister isn't doing it. I don't think he deserves the name of Minister of Labour; it's minister of anti-labour, minister of anti trade unionism, minister of anti the right of people to band together and protect themselves from arbitrary dismissal, to improve their conditions, to improve safety on the job.

This bill is not about Expo 86; it's about the Minister of Labour saying that we've got to cut back the trade unions we have in this province in the interests of foreign capital coming in and treating us like a Hong Kong or a Taiwan and attracting capital. I don't know what this mish-mash of economic theory is that's rattling around in the government benches. It's so ridiculous and so inhuman, so anti-people, so anti the little people, the people that work and produce the wealth of this province. I don't pretend to understand that kind of reasoning, because I think it's just avariciousness dressed up as economic theory.

This bill is turning its back on trade unionism. The Minister of Labour is leading the fight, and I think: what kind of a new order are we running into in this province? It's not one I like to see. The clear direction is going out to the Labour Relations Boards of the future that you've got the Pizza Hut model, where you treated like dogs people who decided that they would take a chance under the protection of the laws of the province of British Columbia and join a trade union. That's the message going out there in terms of anyone else who would dare to try to organize. We're back in the days of the Tolpuddle Martyrs where trade unionism was actively discouraged by the state. That's what this minister is doing. He nods his head, but that's what he's doing in this legislation. There's no other reason why you should put roadblocks against the right of people to organize together, especially the little people who most need that protection at the present time. That's what this bill is all about.

MR. MITCHELL: It's interesting when we go through various news clippings over the past few years under this present government and we see maybe the beginning of the

[ Page 4724 ]

legislation we have today; we see the groundwork that was laid by the government in previous legislation and previous actions.

Before we go into it, I think we should look at labour legislation for what it is. Labour legislation was brought into our society as we know it because there was a need to stop the exploitation of people who work for a living. It wasn't something that came before its time. It came because in many cases it was the children who were destroyed in the mines; it was the breadwinners who were destroyed in the industrial development. Every move that has been made to improve the rights and the conditions of the people who make up the vast majority of this society, those who work for a living....

Every piece of legislation was written with the blood of some person on the job or it was suppressed by certain vested interests.

I think the attitude of this government could be shown in so many ways, but I would like to read from an editorial in the Victoria Times on August 14, 1976, approximately six months after this government came to power. At that time they were talking about unemployment, and this piece of legislation is being brought forward because there is a lot of unemployment. It is being brought forward as a smokescreen to give an idea out to those who are unemployed today that if we can destroy the trade union movement, they will all be working. But it was interesting what the Times said in August 1976:

"British Columbia unemployment figures are as ghastly as the weather: everybody talks about them but nobody does much about them. When Premier Bill Bennett was the Leader of the Opposition he would rant at David Barrett over the figures. Now that Bennett is Premier he says he has nothing to add on the 9.1 percent July unemployed rate...."

He had nothing to say about creating jobs, creating an attitude or an economy where we are going to develop our resources so that more work would be available in processing our resources. In 1976 was when we should have been doing some of the development of where we were going to go in British Columbia, but nothing was done but talk. It's funny when you read the talk. I'll give you some of the conditions that existed. In the 1981 Vancouver Sun, on the report on poverty in Canada, it says:

"A report that says B.C. is the only province in Canada where the number of people who work and still live in poverty is increasing has been described as, 'stomach-turning.' The report on the working poor, released Tuesday by the National Council of Welfare, said B.C.'s 50,000 working-poor households — families earning less than $4,000 a year — comprise 12 percent of the national total and have increased by 2 percent since 1973.

"Families considered working poor by the council earn less than $4,000 a year, and the report said that over half of the country's working poor live below the poverty line."

Labour legislation should be designed to assist organizing, to assist bringing up those who are living in those conditions. It should not be used solely to smash those who are getting a fair wage. It should not be used to destroy something that has grown in our economy. Labour legislation should be there to assist.

When you look at it, a person is usually considered to be living below the poverty level if 62 percent of a yearly income is used to pay for food, shelter and clothing. This morning I had a married man with two children come into my office. He's living on welfare. He is a person who has worked all his life, but eventually wore out his savings and his UIC and is now on welfare getting around $800 to live. This is in British Columbia, one of the richest provinces in Canada. He pays over $500 for rent out of the $800. The attitude of this government has not been to help the working poor. It has not been there to help bring in improvements for the fellow citizens of our province. It is bringing in legislation to protect landlords so that they can increase rents. It's not there to provide any affordable type of housing based on your income. It's not there to bring in legislation that makes it easier for people to get together and work to develop the resources of this province with new industries. It only brings in legislation that keeps people down and continues to grind them a little harder.

As I said, this government didn't just start with this attitude. I have saved another clipping, dated July 1, 1980, when this government had started to get rid of organized workers, to privatize. It's a beautiful word that I know all the members of the government use all the time. "We're going to privatize all the services. We're going to privatize the jobs that are being done today." And here's a good example of what I was talking about — the working poor and the attitude of a government that is keeping down people's ability to live in dignity, to provide the necessities for their children, to plan an education down the road — dignity that represents the resources and wealth of this country.

The government started on this program on July 1, 1980, when they privatized the janitors that worked for the provincial government. I don't know what they were getting in their collective agreement; I'm not privy to that knowledge. But as the Minister of Labour is keeping notes, he may answer that question. They laid off the janitors and privatized the janitorial services, and what happened? "One of the major non-union firms that has been displacing provincial government janitors found itself with a labour dispute of its own on Monday afternoon when eight employees withdrew their service, charging exploitation." This is the type of legislation that should be on the books to protect it. What were they charging? "The main accusation was that Amberley Building Maintenance was taking advantage of the fears of immigrant employees by getting them to work as much as 18 to 20 hours a day, and to sign statements that they would do so without overtime pay." It goes on to say that workers also complained about understaffing, the necessity to shuffle employees from one building to another to work at a hectic pace, and on-the-spot firings that took place without reason. "We were working flat out, sometimes 13 hours without a meal...." This was under a Social Credit government, Mr. Speaker. Another worker, Cham Gurprasad, "said he had been working for the firm for about 10 months and was earning $5 an hour. He said he often worked 18 to 20 hours a day, sometimes even on the weekend, and that he had signed a statement authorizing straight time pay because 'I had no choice. I figured if I didn't I would lose my job.'"

This is what we're getting with employees who are living at the poverty level. This is the type of situation in the province today, and it's going to get worse as this government continues to privatize the services the people are now paying taxes for. They are asking more people, day after day, to live below the poverty level. Is this bill that we're debating today looking to change that? It is not. It is not helping people to

[ Page 4725 ]

raise their expectations. At $5 an hour they are expected to pay rents of $400 and $500 a month. You know the money that you spend every month, Mr. Speaker; it just can't be done.

[4:30]

It goes on to say that when they started off on this particular job they were getting $3.75 per hour, and after 10 months they were raised to the large sum of $5 per hour. The workers brought this issue to the press on July 1. This was a group of employees who worked for the present Social Credit government. Granted, they worked on contract with the firm doing the janitorial service, but as reported in the Times-Colonist on July 2, one day later the eight were fired because they had the guts to stand up and bring to the attention of the government, the Minister of Labour and society the conditions they were forced to work under. That is exactly what this government started to do back in 1980-81, and this is what they're continuing to do.

It is interesting to read what the Premier said about the trade union movement — the Times-Colonist, April 24, 1981:

"Premier Bennett Thursday defended the right of trade unions to 'bargain tough' for the value of their services.

"At the annual meeting of Western Regional Newspapers at Laurel Point Inn, the Premier was asked what his government intended to do about militant unionists who threatened the economy.

"He reminded his audience of weekly newspaper owners that as small businessmen they were constantly bargaining for a better deal for themselves, whether on the price of newsprint or the price of advertisements.

"'The workers also bargain for the value of their services,' he said. 'That's free enterprise. Sometimes the human element creeps in and both sides get stubborn, but that too is a part of the free enterprise system.'"

On the one hand the Premier is saying that people have the right, under a free-enterprise system, to bargain tough for their services; but when they do stand up and try to bargain tough, try to get more than $5 an hour, try to increase the opportunity to live above — or at least at — the poverty line, they are fired. The Social Credit government has done nothing to help the trade union movement or to help those who are trying to organize.

It's interesting to go through other clippings. "Governments Say One Thing But Do Others." This was in the Province on February 23, 1981. Then it was quoting the previous Minister of Labour. "Labour Minister Jack Heinrich stated that government should stay out of the growing morass of labour disputes, because intervention will do more harm than good to the overall labour relations climate and the free collective bargaining system." That's what the Minister of Labour at that time said. He went on to say:

"'It is not the government's job to interfere in every labour dispute, just to ease pain. It is not sufficient to say that the public is inconvenienced to justify government intervention. Inconvenience results from every dispute. It is not sufficient to say that economic hardship results from a dispute. Economic hardship results from every dispute.'"

The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that economic problems existed before people on the job attempted to organize, to raise their rights and expectations and to live in dignity. This is when the real economic injustices happen. This is when the government should be giving some leadership to help people, not encouraging privatization and having people work at minimum wage.

I know that for you, who have lived all your life in the services and always had a fair wage and always lived with and been able to provide for your family with a decent standard of living, maybe it's hard to look out beyond our comfortable position and remember that we who are lucky enough to have that benefit should be looking at ways to improve conditions. I'd like to quote also from the Times-Colonist of July 13, 1982. The Science minister of the Social Credit government was talking a little sense. He wasn't talking about destroying the trade union movement. What did he say?

"Science Minister Pat McGeer says if he were Labour minister he would push for labour and management to enter a new era of cooperation and move away from today's confrontational style. McGeer expects his ideas would be challenged by organized labour, which is protective of its membership and doesn't like to experiment. 'We share the same objectives, labour leaders and myself; to provide high wages and a lot of security to the workers — as well as opportunity.'"

This is what the Minister of Science and Technology said in 1982. He said we must go out and provide high wages and security. He goes on to say:

"'In B.C. there are virtually no firms offering profit-sharing for the workers. So why should a worker be loyal to his company, which is just paying him a wage for service but offering no participation in the actual running of the business? The company doesn't give him anything. It particularly offers him no job protection, so he turns to the union for whatever protection he can get.'

"Management failure to encourage loyalty fosters confrontation and the adversary system."

What I'm saying is that this government should be encouraging cooperation, not continually bringing in legislation that is going to encourage, as the minister of universities and technology says, more confrontation. The type of labour legislation we should be debating today should be the type of legislation that is going to encourage and assist those who are living below the poverty level, those who are trying to exist and raise their families on the minimum wage or $5 an hour. But no, this government has gone out of their way to, I say, protect the very strong segment of our society. I know that it's easy to say. The editorials and the news media keep on saying: "We've got to stop the union bosses. We've got to stop organized labour." But when you look at it, and that unions are big business.... And I think that is true. The trade union movement is a big business. It's not a big business because they particularly wanted to become a big business. They were forced, because of the confrontation of big companies, to adopt many of the managerial styles of the companies that they were trying to organize. It was something that evolved.

When you go back into history, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, the trade union movement started as craft organizations, started as company organizations. It started as a group of workers trying to get a better share of their product. But every time they made one step forward, there was a club used to drive them back. This government is not new in bringing in

[ Page 4726 ]

labour legislation that is restrictive. It's not new at all. It follows in the steps of many, many company-dominated governments that have sat in this Legislature over the years. It has continued to answer the call of what the business community wants.

As I said, the trade union movement, because of evolution, has become large in some cases, but the vast majority of unions that I've ever belonged to have been small groups who have had to survive within the legislation that was on the books. Whenever the union or the people on the job managed to make a few gains in negotiations, the goalposts were moved. This is really what this piece of legislation is doing. It's moving the goalposts to make it a little easier for the business community to have more people working at $3.75 an hour; more people who, after ten months, try to support a family on $5 an hour — given that more people can be fired without cause, fired solely because they had the guts to stand up and say that the rate of pay for the work they were doing was mediocre.

It wasn't what the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) said they were fighting for — to provide high wages and good security. It was the type of legislation, the type of action to cut people back.

As I say, unions can be branded, and in some cases they have become big business. But the biggest business in the union field today is the union-busters that are now the high-priced help in negotiations. I'd like to read from the Province of June 11, 1980:

"There's a new breed of union-buster on the labour scene. They carry briefcases instead of baseball bats and conduct seminars instead of twisting arms. They are high-priced labour relations consultants and labour lawyers who coach employers in how to use every legal trick in the book to keep the union from the workplace — and even some less-than-legal tactics.

"In the U.S. union-busting is a $100 million-a-year industry, and growing. In the southern U.S., where labour relations are relatively backward compared with most of the rest of North America, decertification elections have increased fourfold since 1970, with labour losing three of every four battles. Certification drives there are being defeated by management at a ratio of two to one."

[4:45]

These high-priced union-busters used to work on the job site; they used to work in the employers' associations. They've changed their tactics. They are now working in the cabinet of this government. They are the ones, with the backing of such organizations as the Fraser Institute, who are going out of their way.... What they couldn't do in negotiations they are doing legally by bringing in the type of legislation that can destroy the certification of groups who are trying to raise their standard of living. What bothers me is the complete lack of humanity of the government and the back-benchers of that party. They are not standing up and fighting.

Some of the strategies to stay union-free.... To expect to get a decent wage is a sin in the business community. It's a sin in that government that sits in British Columbia today. They would rather have the whole province non-union. They would rather have the whole province getting $3 and $5 an hour because they think that's going to make the booming economy that you and I both know will never happen. Strategies to stay union-free. Defending management's right to a union-free environment. Successful negotiating strategies. The seminars are costly: $595 per person in 1980, payable in U.S. funds — this is in Canada — which comes to about $700 in Canadian dollars. What it was designed to do was go out and break the trade union movement — break the little ones and the large ones.

It's interesting when you read some of the other articles.... This is from the Province of Wednesday, June 11, 1980. The chap who was running the seminar, Bill MacDonald, goes on to talk about ways of breaking the trade union movement.

"While union-busting may be big business in the United States because of lax labour legislation, and even flourishes in eastern Canada, the strict B.C. Labour Code renders many anti-union tactics useless. 'The Labour Code is one of the most innovative pieces of labour legislation around. Some would say progressive — I wouldn't. It works here because of the unique labour relations environment, where elsewhere it might be ill-advised.' "

The present labour legislation was innovative. It assisted people to increase their standard of living.

"'Many lawyers who aren't experienced with labour relations in B.C. tell employers it's no use resisting an application for certification, because unions do not usually make application unless they already have a majority of workers signed up. They also say the employer must be very careful of unfair labour practices, that it's best not to discuss the situation with the employees. Many employers believe they have no rights to communicate with their employees on an application made for certification, and in many cases they are best advised not to.'"

With the new legislation that the present minister is bringing in, he is determined to push government into trade union problems...and to free collective bargaining. His predecessor said that under the free enterprise system they were not about to do that.

"'I have found in my experience that most employers' chances of defeating an application for certification are extremely limited. The union wouldn't apply in most cases if it did not have a good chance. The union usually has to make a disastrous mistake to lose, and they don't make mistakes.' "

And it ends up with what is quite true and what I said earlier, Mr. Speaker.

"'Once the union is certified, the rules of the game are changed significantly as far as day-to-day business goes. The employer is up against a professional union organizer, and he needs a lot of advice. Successful unions today borrow techniques of management — they are run as a business.' "

This is the attitude of those in North America who are being paid hundreds of millions of dollars to keep people down. It's basically keeping people from getting a chance to work together and to stand up and speak up. I won't go through the various sections of the new legislation. Once certification is applied for and they have a majority, then the vote is taken at a later date. As one of my colleagues said, if there were ten people who made a majority or 55 percent of the application for certification on the day of the vote, on that later date the employer could hire ten of his relatives to defeat that vote. I say, Mr. Speaker, that this is the type of legislation that this province does not need. This legislation is going to

[ Page 4727 ]

do what the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) said: it's going to continue the confrontation that we do not want.

It's not going to provide one more job; it may reshuffle people who were getting a decent wage out onto the welfare rolls and allow those who are prepared to work for $3.75 back into the labour force, but it's not going to provide the stimulus that our economy needs. When we expect all of the province or large sections of this province to live below the poverty line.... When they have to spend over 62 percent of their wages for shelter, food and clothing, they are living below that poverty line. When you have a government that continues to use the power that they have been entrusted with to bring down standards of living and expectations, what happens out in the rest of the business community? There is less money in circulation, and who suffers first? Not only those who are getting the small wages but the small-business community who need the circulation of money in the community to keep their businesses in operation. People are not going to buy a new T.V., new clothes or a recreation vehicle if they are getting $3 to $5 an hour in wages. They're not going to be able to do it; they are going to only provide the necessities to their home.

When you start winding down our economy.... This is really what is happening in British Columbia because of the tactics that came in since July 7, 1983. A new budget and new labour legislation — or anti-labour legislation — came in, saying that civil servants at that time could be fired without cause and civil servants in services that the public had come to depend on could be taken away. This legislation will continue in that step. It will continue in driving fear in with that confrontation, fear that people must retrench. People must say to their children: "You no longer have a right to look ahead to an education. You no longer have a right to look ahead to holidays, because my job might be privatized and I might be expected to do the same job that I'm now getting $9 an hour for for $3." If I think that as a member of a group I have a right to organize to bring in the rights to have the opportunity of raising my lifestyle.... That's going to be denied. When you have that in an economy, you're going to have confrontation, you're going to have fear, and we're going to go further and further into a depression.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

If this government would only listen to the academics and the economists instead of the union-busters and the Fraser Institute, British Columbia could be a great place to live in. If it continues down this tube, we are all going to suffer. I say "all," because you can't take rights away from people without them fighting back and working harder to defeat this government. Democracy means something. In a democracy people have a right to stand up and express their opinions. Under this labour legislation, if someone wants to make a political protest, to stand up and be counted once every three or four years and march in front of the parliament buildings, it will now be an offence. They did that in Poland when they destroyed the Solidarity union and denied workers the opportunity to speak out in political protest. When this government brings in that type of legislation under the guise of labour-busting, we should give a lot of thought to where we're going.

In winding up, Mr. Speaker, I would say that this is bad legislation; it is going to destroy a lot of people. But it is going to make those who are working today a lot stronger, because they are going to rebel. They are going to stand up.... I don't know how, but I believe workers are very innovative. They won't take it forever; they will stand up, work and defeat this government. I hope the minister will give serious thought to withdrawing this piece of legislation, looking at it again, and bringing in something that is beneficial to those who work.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, last Thursday and Friday, when this bill was introduced, we had a debate in this House. We had two definite philosophies presented, with arguments pro and con, and that's the way this House is supposed to function. Today that debate has gone. We're no longer debating the bill back and forth. The minister sits there all alone most of the time; his support seems to have gone, and no one else on that side of the House seems prepared to get up and make a statement in support of the principles of this bill. This is a bill where the principle is the most important thing, rather than the details, which we will get into at another time.

Certainly the principle of this bill is one that reflects attitudes. It reflects the attitude of this government probably more clearly than any other piece of legislation we have had before in this House. It represents attitudes that cause those of us on this side of the House a great deal of concern for the future of British Columbia and British Columbians. We believe those attitudes to be extremely biased in favour of a small minority, and extremely biased in opposition to the welfare of British Columbia generally.

[5:00]

That's a pretty broad statement, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to go back even further than my colleague the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) has gone in looking at what is behind these attitudes. In doing that I think we have to look at areas where labour has not been able to have fair representation. One of those areas is certainly the southern United States, where we know there is a much lower percentage of people involved in any organized form of representations for the workers — as low as 7 and 8 percent in some states; 19 percent is about the maximum — as compared to a much higher percentage in other areas of the United States. We must ask ourselves why the attitude in the southern States is the way it is.

In March 1978 there was an editorial research report published which dealt with labour's southern strategy. I'd like to read just one paragraph:

"Slavery — the south's peculiar institution — was and remains the dominant factor in Southern labour history. According to historian Eugene Genovese, slavery was more than a labour system. Refining a line of argument developed in the 1920s by historian U.B. Phillips, Genovese wrote in 1964 that slavery marked the South as a culturally different place from the industrial and commercial North. As the rest of the country marched into the capitalist future of the industrial revolution, the South ambled along, entrapped in a form of feudalism."

We're talking about the attitudes and approaches lying behind the principle of this bill.

The feudal aspects of southern life predisposed the southerner to oppose large institutions of any kind — be they governmental or private — and such attitudes helped seal the doom of the south against the north during the Civil War.

[ Page 4728 ]

After the Civil War the south was a very poor and undeveloped area, with an economy based on shrinking agricultural foundations and one other thing: they had a surplus of labour. With those kinds of attitudes and a surplus of labour, what happened? I think we know. Using the incentives of cheap labour, low taxes and a warm climate, the south began to woo the northern manufacturers. As a result, it took jobs away from the union areas and moved them into the south. What was the result of that? The wages in the New England states — the textile industry moved into the south — dropped. That kind of approach and those kinds of legislative changes have a drastic effect on the overall economy, because they reduce the earning power of the people involved in that economy.

Following that we saw for almost ten years a series of strikes and labour unrest that resulted in major lockouts, because unions began to catch on. The owners of those textile mills, recognizing that their profits were being endangered, engaged in a series of lockouts. They shut down their mills, discharged their employees and blacklisted them. Those were the results in the textile industry. We've seen the lengths that owners will go to. They will combine their efforts; they will close down mills; they will do whatever is necessary to ensure that their profit margin is protected.

The whole slavery situation in the southern states had another effect. Because there was slave labour available, there were a terrific number of poor whites who became a blight on the southern area, vying for positions that were held by slaves and former slaves. There was a terrifically depressed situation as a result of the slave and master, serf and lord attitude that still prevails down there, according to this historian, who writes in 1964.

Certainly we've seen examples of the same type of thing right here on Vancouver Island — something much closer to home and much closer to my heart, and I've spoken about it in this House before.

I would certainly commend to any of the members of this Legislature the book entitled Boss Whistle, which was compiled by one Lynne Bowen and is a history of the coal-mining situation on Vancouver Island. It relates similar instances, where there was violence as a result of government actions. You will recall that the militia was brought in to Extension, and that many of the miners were arrested and thrown into jail. Some of the stories in this book are.... It's shocking to think that this occurred 70 years ago — a short span in evolutionary history — right here on Vancouver Island. There's a story here related by one of the people who remembers what went on, talking about a meeting in progress:

"...Col. Hall rushed his troops to the scene, surrounded the hall and placed a machine-gun at the back door. Some of his men peeped through the cracks and said they saw miners with guns and knives and every conceivable weapon. He thereupon sent an officer into the hall, who told the chairman that he had two minutes to clear the place. Col. Hall said: 'Six at at time, single file. Any man running will be instantly shot or bayoneted.' So I went out in the second group, and there were soldiers on both sides with fixed bayonets and I had to walk through to the courthouse, and a special policeman grabbed me by the arm and we were all taken into the courthouse to be searched for weapons."

And they didn't find one weapon.

That's the kind of thing that was occurring in recent history, as history goes, right here on Vancouver Island, when miners were attempting to organize and that attempt was being made because of many deaths as a result of explosions in those mines. One of my predecessors was sentenced to two years in Oakalla as a result of that incident. He and another were sentenced to two years; 22 people were sentenced to one year, and 11 others were sentenced to three months. The judge in his statement said that "the severity of the sentence would, he opined, lead to a 'dissolution of the forces of agitation.'" Men were faced with the militia because they dared try to organize to protect their very lives from explosions in the mines. One of them, a chap of 21 by the name of Joseph Mairs, died of TB; he had a one-year sentence. An amnesty arrangement was made. The people who had been sentenced to two years never served those two years, but it came too late for Joseph Mairs. His grave is in Ladysmith; it is still tended as a constant reminder to Ladysmith people that the fight for freedom or the right to express yourself and the right to join with your co-workers is hard to come by. It is not easily won, nor should it be easily taken away. Many of those rights are being taken away by this bill.

I'm constantly amazed at the parallel between the thinking of those people over there and the ideas espoused by the Fraser Institute. The day after the bill was introduced the library circulated a list of publications. They had a new one from the Fraser Institute entitled Trade Unions and Society: Some Lessons of the British Experience. I thought it would be good reading in preparing myself to speak on this bill; it was fascinating reading. The Fraser Institute is fast becoming not only the opinion moulders of that side of the House but their espousals are being used as opinion moulders for the public. We are being exposed, over and over, to the kind of philosophy, attitudes and directions as espoused by the Fraser Institute. It's an institute that, if you look at the subscribers, is nothing more nor less than the voice of the corporate structure, not only in British Columbia but around the world.

[5:15]

They use some interesting terms. They set up several hypotheses, and then they proceed to comment on them. Hypothesis after hypothesis always brings a trade union into question in this book. They talk about the escape from union strangulation: "Unions dam up the escape routes. The great social struggle...." They go on. There's a section entitled "Trade unions and the British disease," and they talk about the role of unionism in the three-horned British disease of high inflation, high unemployment and slow growth. They say that inflation is the fault of the trade unions. They say unemployment is the fault of the trade unions. Slow growth, they say, is the fault of the trade unions.

It's not the union disease that we're suffering from here in British Columbia. We're suffering in British Columbia from the Fraser Institute disease. They're spreading this kind of nonsense — supposedly a documented treatise — and it certainly expresses an attitude. It's biased and twisted, but it expresses an attitude, and they're spreading that philosophy around British Columbia in an attempt to build on dissension. It's the kind of dissension that always occurs when you have a downturn in the economy and there is a need for competitiveness when jobs are scarce and unemployment is high. It's not the trade union disease; it's the Fraser Institute disease. One can go through this book and find quotes that are completely parallel to the kinds of things that were espoused in

[ Page 4729 ]

this House on Thursday and Friday by members of the government. They have bought this philosophy hook, line and sinker, or they've dreamed it up and are getting the Fraser Institute to sell it for them. I'm not sure which it is, but either way there is not the thickness of an onion skin between that government's philosophy and that of the Fraser Institute.

A case in point deals with the labour market. I'm trying to find the particular quote. It tries to prove the case that the union is responsible for restricting markets generally and the labour market in particular. It's interesting to note that in a recent document, entitled "Provincial Economic Development Program" and circulated to deputy ministers last month by Norman Spector and David Emerson from the Premier's and Minister of Finance's office, that's one of the very quotes they used — "removing barriers to the efficient operation of markets, including the labour market."

What does that really mean, Mr. Speaker? What it really means is that in the Socred way of thinking and in the Fraser Institute way of thinking, wages and working conditions are to blame for the poor performance of the B.C. economy. That's exactly the case that's made in this book, and not made well. It states in the book, in fact, that the reason that we have such high unemployment is all the trade unions' fault, because if they weren't demanding so much, the people that were not in the trade unions would be able to work.

They have come to the conclusion in this book, in the Fraser Institute, that corporate profits have nothing to do with it because the amount of difference in wages would not affect the corporate profits. It is very interesting. It has nothing to do with the corporate profits; it's all the trade unions' fault, not the corporations'. That's the kind of argument advanced by this government and by the Fraser Institute, side by side.

They want to remove that barrier; they want to get rid of the trade union movement, of the right of employees to organize, so that there is a great pool of labour with no way that anyone can speak for them. They want to create the same kind of situation here in British Columbia as in Louisiana or Mississippi or any of those southern states. They want to turn the clock back.

Really what they're looking for is a low-wage policy in British Columbia. This is one step. We had another piece of legislation — I know I can't reflect on it — but they made sure that they restricted the human rights legislation so it was less accessible and less broad so that if a worker did not have a union to support him, he would not be able to go to the Human Rights Commission over things that were deliberately omitted from that particular bill. That is all I will say about that bill, Mr. Speaker. But the two are hand in hand; the two are part and parcel.

I think that we have to understand that what we're dealing with here today is something that has been in the works for a long, long time. What we're dealing with here today is something that this government has been working towards for a long, long time. They have been deliberately capitalizing on the fact that with high unemployment and the discrepancies that occur between union and non-union workers, jobs are in short supply and you have a lot of people looking for those jobs. They have deliberately capitalized on that and fostered it with publications such as this from the Fraser Institute, spreading that kind of poison that somehow it's all the trade unions' fault. They've built up the public perception to the point where they now think that they can capitalize on that, that they can take a bill like this and have public support, that the public will perceive it to be something that is going to get rid of those discrepancies.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

That's how it's going to be perceived, they hope. They've prepared the ground very well. They've taken a lot of time to build up that public perception out there and to lay the groundwork for introducing this bill in an atmosphere where they feel it will be popular. Really what they're doing is simply going ahead with a creation of a class society. They talk about the discrepancy between one set of workers and another. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that we will find that what will happen with this piece of legislation is exactly what the government knows will happen: we will create a class society, a society that tends more towards the feudal system of serfs and lords or serfs and sharks — people who have to go cap in hand to get a job at any price in any way — in order to maximize profits for the sharks who are there to gobble up anything that they can make off the backs of those workers. We will see workers willing to work under unsafe conditions, because if they don't, their job is in jeopardy. We will see worker pitted against worker, as we have seen already.

Probably the most ridiculous basis for introducing this bill espoused by the government is that it's going to benefit the economy. It's not going to benefit the economy. All you have to do is look at history, Mr. Speaker. It's very clear, whenever we have had these kind of instances that attempt to remove from workers their rights to have some say in how the workplace is operated, some joint input into those working conditions, to the health situation, to that whole work environment as well as to wages, to job security.... When that's gone, we have confrontation, and confrontation is not good for the economy — not at all.

[5:30]

I don't for a minute believe that this government or that minister really think that this bill will produce peace in the workplace. I think the minister really believes it will produce confrontation, and that's what he's hoping will happen. He can then use his Fraser Institute some more and build up some more public opinion against those people who are fighting for their very jobs — and lives, as it were, relative to the workplace environment. That's going to be one of the big issues: building up all the antagonism against those people. Somehow they will always get the blame; it will never be the owner, operator or company. In Boss Whistle, not one of the scabs, people on the other side or militia were ever questioned, let alone arrested or charged. Only the people who were attempting to organize their union in those mines here on Vancouver Island were. It's the same type of thinking as that judge who said that that sentence would show those agitators once and for all. That same kind of thinking is prevailing in the Fraser Institute, on those cabinet benches, in the back bench and in this piece of legislation. That is a backward step which will do nothing to ensure that we have labour peace or ensure that the economy does pick up; in fact, it is all to the contrary.

We are concerned about this piece of legislation, because we're concerned about British Columbia. We don't want to become the Mississippi or the Louisiana of Canada, because those economies lag far behind the more industrialized states in America, just as the economies of the developing countries where people work for a pittance lag far behind the economies of the industrialized world generally, because you can't

[ Page 4730 ]

take out what you don't put in. Unfortunately, corporations which maximize their profits do not return those profits to the economy. What happens is that they're drained off, reinvested somewhere else and invested in stocks or bonds or put in Swiss bank accounts; they don't come back into the day-to-day economy of Louisiana or Mississippi or one of the Third World countries.

If we are not putting dollars into the pockets of the workers of this province, they're not going to be spent. They can't be spent. The economy of a country rises or falls on the basis of the incomes of its people. What this bill is doing is taking away the right of people to earn a fair wage. When that happens, those people are not going to spend that money — they're not going to have it to spend — and that will affect every business in this province, because if consumers are not consuming, manufacturers are not manufacturing. Their profits are not being made, so they put more pressure on their workers, because that's the only thing they know. So the workers get less money, again, so they have less money to spend, so there are less consumer goods bought, so there is less manufacturing — and so it goes.

That's exactly what we're starting into with this bill that, coupled with the fact that you can only beat people down so far. As you beat them down with this bill and others that I imagine the minister is already looking at, you are going to find that there will be a time when they will not take it any longer. Then you will have the situations that happened in the southern states — in Texas and Louisiana in the textile industry. You will have major confrontations, lockouts, strikes and all the things that take place when people are deprived of a democratic, legislated means of dealing with their problems and are forced to use whatever other means are at hand. That's what happens. That's what this bill is all about. It's a bill with a principle that dates back to slavery and feudalism.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You don't even believe that yourself.

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, I do. I do believe that very much, because that's the principle behind this bill: to make a group of people — the workers, the majority of people in this province — into serfs who come cap in hand begging for a job on any terms. That's the direction in which this bill is going. It may be just one step, but when you start down that road, it's a very dangerous road for British Columbia, Canada and the economy.

MR. PARKS: I think sufficient time has lapsed for some relatively intelligent comment to be added to this debate.

MR. LAUK: If you say so yourself.

MR. PARKS: Yes, hon. member, if I say so myself.

It's hard to believe that the member who has just spoken has actually looked at the piece of legislation that is before this House. For her to stand in her place and suggest that this legislation beats down the people, suggesting that this legislation has, in principle, the goal of bringing our workers back to the days of slavery and feudalism, suggesting that this legislation deprives our workers of democratic means to solve their problems, clearly indicates her lack of comprehension of this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the Labour Code has a very important role to play in our society. The Labour Code is an attempt by the government to codify the social wishes with respect to labour-management relations; it is obviously a living, breathing piece of legislation, or it should be, because it reflects the values of society at any given time. In 1972 there was a major revision of those game rules of the reflection of society and how the labour-management structure in this province should be evolving and directed. Since that time there have been suggestions that the Code should be changed in drastic and far-reaching ways. It really hasn't been. Since the election of 1983 people have expected far-reaching legislative changes in the Labour Code. To this moment in time they haven't been made. They haven't occurred until this moment in time, Mr. Speaker, because the Minister of Labour and this government have seen fit to undertake extensive consultation with every group that's interested in society with respect to our labour laws. It has taken a tremendous amount of work and a tremendous amount of consultation, and the result is a piece of legislation that embodies and improves the rights of workers in this province. This piece of legislation is not meant to bash unions or to enhance management's rights, and it does neither. Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation clearly and only improves the rights of workers in this province.

I can't understand why the union leaders have been spewing forth the rhetoric that we have seen since last week. Why are they so concerned about legislation that improves the rights of their members? Do they not want their members to be able to work without harassment by secondary picketing because of the actions of other selfish unions? Do they not want their members to have the right to vote on matters of certification and decertification? Do they not want their members to have the protection from disciplinary action or harassment if a worker refuses to participate in illegal acts? Do they not want their members to have the right to a secret ballot in voting for the approval or rejection of contract offers? Are the union leaders afraid of giving their members rights and allowing the workers of this province to speak out through the process of secret votes? I can't understand, Mr. Speaker, why we're having all this bogey-man rhetoric about what this legislation does. This legislation is, in fact, assisting in creating a progressive and stable economic climate in this province that will go far to bring about the recovery that we all so greatly wish to see.

This is not the time to be ballyhooing about poor workers being thrashed by big bad management or big bad government. This is not the case. We are going through extremely severe economic times. It is a time when we have to work together. Surely, Mr. Speaker, anyone who takes the time to read this bill sees what the purpose is and what the effect will be. When workers have the opportunity to speak their wishes, we are going to see more and more workers appreciating the need to work together with their employers and management.

MR. CAMPBELL: That's what they're scared of.

[ Page 4731 ]

MR. PARKS: I don't know who is afraid of that, hon. member. Certainly the workers of this province should not be afraid of it. Certainly the government of this province is not afraid of it, and certainly not the majority of British Columbians are not afraid of that. There may well be a small vested group who don't want to have workers given all those rights, but this government, I am proud to say, clearly wishes to have those workers given those rights. I would suggest that that is the main principle and theme of this bill. I have no hesitancy to unequivocally support it.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think we have to stretch this out ad infinitum. I would hope that any further members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, before they start espousing that political rhetoric, would take the time to read the bill and understand it a little better. I have nothing further to say at this time.

[5:45]

Introduction of Bills

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (NO. 2), 1984

On behalf of Hon. Mr. Smith, Hon. Mr. Gardom presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1984.

Bill 31 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:46 p.m.